Any Port In A Storm
by Vanillusion
Summary: (SLASH : JackWill) You can't deny what's in your blood; and when Captain Jack Sparrow returns to Port Royale, Will Turner must choose between the life he once wanted and the life he was meant for... [ Warning : Boys Kissing. Not your bag? Shoo. ]
1. A Place to Rest Easy

Any Port In A Storm  
  
Chapter I : A Place To Rest Easy  
  
[ colloquial title : Tis Better to have Loved and Lost...]  
  
***  
  
Sometimes, even Captain Jack Sparrow needed a place to rest easy.  
  
He could sleep like the dead on the deck of the Black Pearl, with nothing but gale force rain for a blanket. He could sleep on his feet in raucous, smoky taverns, propped against the wall with his hat tipped down over his eyes. He could sleep under piers, or in alleys, or anywhere he has to, really; but he never really rested. His hand never left his sword, his muscles never uncoiled, and his senses never really gave up their way vigil. Sleep deep, get killed; he'd seen it happen to others a thousand times, and Jack Sparrow had no death wish.  
  
What he did have was a black eye, a split lip, a nearly empty jug of rum and a decent amount of difficulty seeing where he was going. No matter. Straight ahead was good enough, for the time being. The truth was that he didn't really know, or care, where he'd end up.   
  
He'd sworn he'd never come back here. On the deck of the Black Pearl, surrounded by the open sea, it was easy to pretend that Will Turner had never existed. It was a simple thing push the boy to the back of his mind and live in the moment when one was riding the very waves of Freedom herself. It was easy to forget about the way those eyes looked in the glint of early morning sunlight, or the way his that hair curled just behind the ears, or the way those arms felt around him in the darkness of the cabin...  
  
But here in this place, Will Turner haunted him by the minute. He had never planned to dock here, but the sea had chosen his path for him, this time; seething and roiling and tossing the Black Pearl in huge bucks and lurches over the waves, caught in the crosswinds of a gale force tropical storm. Captain Sparrow trusted his ship more than he trusted the fingers of his own right hand, but he valued it as he valued them, as well; he would no more have tried to force her through the worst of the storm than he would have laid his hand voluntarily beneath the blade of a sword.  
  
And so it was here, here for the night, and why had he ever dropped the plank and come ashore? Somewhere in this city, Will Turner was a happy man. Beneath one of these rooves he slept, probably in the arms of his darling Elizabeth. Will Turner was safe, and warm, and where he belonged now. And Captain Jack Sparrow was right back where he started.  
  
He had the Pearl, he had his crew, and he had every inch of seawater from here to Singapore at his command. Why, then, was he stumbling through these darkened streets well after midnight, soaked to the bone and nursing the last drops of rum from the bottle? Why hadn't he found the company of a tavern lass to warm him this evening? Why was he alone, and lost, and starting to feel sick?  
  
The rain didn't bother him. The mud didn't bother him. The lack of rum bothered him a bit, but not enough to spit over. He was used to being soaked, and dirty, and out of alcohol to boot. A pirates life was not exactly what one would call luxuriant, nor predictable, nor comfortable when one came right down to it; but it was his life, and the only one he knew, or wanted, or could even imagine. He slept cheerfully in gutters or galleys, went hungry and did not notice, cleaned out wounds with sea water and a dirty rag and considered them suitably sterile.   
  
But sometimes, even Captain Jack Sparrow needed a place to rest easy. Sometimes even the most hardened scalawag longed a few moments peace, and shelter from the rain, and a blanket to keep him warm for a little while.   
  
It was getting harder and harder to walk straight, and there was no more rum, now, to be nursed from the bottle. He threw it far ahead of him, heard it shatter and a woman scream, did not care. The mud came right up to his boot straps, the rain had long ago soaked every stitch of clothing on him, and now he wasn't sure that he could weave and wander his way back to the deck of the Pearl even if he wanted to. How far had he come through these streets? Which way were the docks? A sober Captain Sparrow would have been able to deduce and cover the distance in minutes. The drunk Captain Sparrow simply stumbled sideways into the closest doorway and sat down in the mud.  
  
The rain didn't hit him right in the face, here. The mud wasn't quite so deep. He'd sleep it off in this alley, yes; just let the run weave it's course through his brain while his body tried to rest. When the sun rose and the alcohol ebbed away, he'd go straight back to the ship, haul in the anchor and, and he'd never set eyes on this place again. He'd take to the seas without looking back, and leave the ghost of Will Turner to wander these streets forever. Jack Sparrow refused to be a haunted man.   
  
Hoofbeats, carriage wheels, and a roll of drunken laughter. They went as quickly as they came, splashing mud into his alcove. He did not mind. Mud was nice and soft for sleeping. Another set of hoofbeats, this time at a canter. Who the hell else would be out in this weather? Only drunkards and fools, or so he concluded. Drunkards, fools, and pirates haunted by memories.  
  
He closed his eyes, tipped his hat brim down so that the rain would not run down onto his face, and waited for morning. Morning always came, no matter how dark it got at night. When he'd been very, very small, he'd lain awake at night and prayed that the sun would find it's way back each morning. It had not seemed a certain thing. Sometimes it stayed dark all day long in the hold of the ship where he'd been kept, and he'd begun to wonder at times whether it had really grown light outside at all. And there had been no one to explain to him, or comfort him, because pirates didn't explain anything to their prisoners unless their captain made them. He was lucky if he was fed, watered, and remembered at all.  
  
But that had been a very long time ago, and Captain Jack Sparrow was far from a little boy. He was a free man, a captain, and a pirate to put to shame those who'd captured him as a child and raised him to be what he was now. They'd been a hodgepodge organization; small beans, raking in small booty. It had been Bootstraps Bill who'd taken Jack under his wing and taught him the true tricks of the trade, who'd given him his first good sword and helped him commandeer his first good ship. It had been Bootstraps Bill who'd made him into Captain Jack Sparrow, feared and revered. And it had been Bootstraps Bill who'd stayed by his side, through thick and through thin, whatever the waters washed their way.   
  
Now there was nothing left of Bootstraps Bill but a name, a legend, and a son that looked just like him. Now Will Turner had charged head long into Captain Sparrow's blissfully dissonant life and thrown down an anchor, offered him a moment's peace and never let him forget it. He found that he could not have disagreed more with the old adage ''Tis better to have Loved and Lost, then naught have Loved at all.' He'd be a happy man today if he'd never learned to love, and a free man, and a whole man. He wouldn't be here in this muddy, rainsoaked street, wishing for quiet and softness and a warm body close to his own. He would have forgotten all about Bootstraps Bill and his beautiful son; forgotten the both of them and sailed on for the horizon. If he hadn't ever been loved, then he wouldn't know how to miss it. He wouldn't have ever know what it was like to lay his head against another shoulder and feel arms as strong as his own around him in the darkness, to have his hair brushed from his eyes by tender, calloused fingers, to hear his name spoken by a low, quiet voice that called him perfect...  
  
He wasn't perfect, and damn Will Turner for lying to him, for loving him and then loving Elizabeth more. Damn him for looking so much like his father. Damn him for living in this god forsaken rain soaked hell hole, and having the nerve to not know that Jack was here, and for leaving him out here in the storm.   
  
Damn him for everything.  
  
Captain Jack Sparrow drew his knees up to his chest and huddled up in the doorway, too drunk and too tired to ever know that, just beyond it, lay the very blacksmith's shop where he'd first set eyes upon the only man to ever break his heart. And when sometime much later - in the darkest hours just before dawn - that door opened, Captain Jack Sparrow did not believe his own senses one bit. Surely he had to be dreaming, because there was no way that Will Turner was really lifting him up, really here at all. A dream, of course; even in his dreams, the boy wouldn't leave him to miss him in peace.   
  
And as the warm arms brought him in from the rain, he whispered "Damn you, Will Turner," sure that when he awoke he would be alone.  
  
  
  
-to be continued-  
  
*** 


	2. The Ghost of Captain Jack

Any Port In A Storm  
  
Chapter II : The Ghost of Captain Jack  
  
[ colloquial title : prove it ]  
  
**  
  
         A year and a half ago, I watched the Black Pearl pull out of port with her sails trimmed. I watched her stern fade to nothing on the horizon, sure that this would be my very last look at her.   A year and a half ago, I married Elizabeth Swan; held out my wrists for the shackles of Happily Ever After and resigned myself to a lifetime with the woman I love.   
  
And I do love her, really -- but I laid eyes on her before I laid eyes on the world around me. I fell in love with Elizabeth before I realized that there was anything else for me in life besides days spent in the blacksmiths shop, and nights spent practicing with the weapons I crafted. I'm a good blacksmith, but I've always been a better swordsman. And I'm a good husband, too. But I'm a better pirate.   
  
  
  
Sometimes, very late at night, I walk down to the piers. I don't go there much, anymore. I haven't been back more than a dozen times since the Pearl sailed away into the sunset, and took with it everything that my life was -- and is -- supposed to be. Captain Jack Sparrow was gone with the wind.   
  
  
  
And I, Will Turner, am right back where I started.   
  
I learned to live without him; and I learned to do it quickly, before anyone realized what he'd been to me. I kissed my beautiful bride and married my way into all the money than even a pirate could want, and I pushed Jack Sparrow into my memories. Since then, I've done everything that a good husband should; and yet a part of me sailed away with the Black Pearl that day, a part I thought I'd surely lost forever.   
  
I don't know why I stayed so late at the blacksmith's shop. I kept the place because I needed something of my own. I can buy any sword I want, now, and yet I continue to make them because I love them ... because it gives me freedom to make them, and wield them, even if it's only at the walls of my own little shop.   
  
Then the storm had come up like a demon, descending upon Port Royale with the darkness, and to go back to the house in such weather would have been foolish unless it was absolutely necessary. And there was something quite comforting about the little building, something nearly cozy, really. Let the storm beat away at my door; I was free, here -- free to think, free to remember him...   
  
How easy it was to draw up the image of him in my mind when I tried to -- dark, wild hair and darker, wilder eyes; hardened, calloused, and yet surprisingly slender hands, and the sun darkened skin that was so much softer than it looked. The way he smiled when he had a particularly good plan, the way he laughed, the way he looked right after we'd made love...   
  
Too much, these memories. They pressed in on me from all sides if I allowed them to, until I couldn't think of anything but him. He was probably leagues away, by now, and God only knew where he was; whether he lay in someone's arms, tonight, or suffered in a cold little cell somewhere. Maybe Captain Jack Sparrow was already dead and gone. I had no way of knowing. I would never know.   
  
He haunted me through the night, the memories gathering themselves like phantoms in the shadows of the smithy, collecting silently around me until I could feel him, smell him, taste him. Captain Jack Sparrow, legend of the high seas, fast asleep against my shoulder with his fingers still curled through my hair. I could damned near see the moonlight spilling over the smooth plane of his back, feel his warm and even breath against my skin. Wild, abandoned, utterly beautiful...   
  
I had to get out of that smithy. I had to get away from the ghost of Captain Jack. The rain had let up, some, and the wind was not so fierce. Dawn should be rising soon, though in weather like this it would no doubt stay dark well on into morning. I would slip back inside before Elizabeth woke, go back to Happily Every After...   
  
I opened the door, and there he was.   
  
I could not believe my eyes. Surely I had gone mad. He was a thousand miles away, right now, not here on my very doorstep. Fate had never been this generous to a living soul before, as far as I knew, and I could see no good reason for it to change its ways now. For a moment I stood very, very still in the doorway, with the rain pouring in at my feet, and struggled with my own senses. He simply could not be real; and yet when I crouched down beside him, placed a hand against his shoulder, there was flesh and bone beneath it; a soaked, shivering, solid man.   
  
He was injured, but that was far from unusual and the least of my concerns. He was also very drunk, which was nearly requisite. His dark eyes were glazed, half mast, and he didn't seem to he able to focus them on me for more than a second. And he must have been out all night in the rain, because there wasn't a single dry inch on him. Water dripped from the brim of his hat, from the ends of his hair and from his beard. He looked like hell -- but he was alive, and real, and at my very fingertips.   
  
The moment was surreal -- strangely sharpened and yet dreamlike. For so long I had lived with only the memories of him, that the living, breathing being before me was a shock to my system. My God, it was as though I had only seen him yesterday; and as I lifted him in my arms, he was quite simply too real to be real at all.   
  
And then Captain Jack Sparrow looked up at me sleepily, drunkenly, and said "Damn you, Will Turner..."  
  
I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or kiss him first.   
  
So I did all three at once. I laughed through my tears as I sank to the floor with him inside; ran both hands covetously over his shoulders and arms and his knotted, rain soaked hair And then I kissed him -- kissed him for all the times that I'd dreamed of kissing him but couldn't, kissed him to make him real again. I kissed him because I'd thought that he was gone forever, and now he was here in my arms.   
  
He tasted just as I knew he would taste -- like sea salt and tobacco and rum, like daydreams made real, like freedom itself. His lips parted against mine willingly, his arms wound easily 'round my neck; enamored with the weight of him in my arms. I didn't care where he'd come from, or how, or why - I didn't care about anything except this kiss, and this man, and this moment. I held the kiss as long as I could before drawing back and gazing down at him.   
  
He seemed content enough to rest in my arms. Tipping his head back onto my shoulder, he looked up at me with a little drunken, contented smile. "You know what would be wonderful, Will? It would be truly wonderful if you were real."   
  
Drunk beyond words, and most likely just as shocked by our sudden reunion as I was. I couldn't be sure that he'd even aware what city he was in. I ran the backs of my fingers very gently over his cheekbone, whispered, "I'm real, Jack. This is real. I'm here. You're here. You're here.. "  
  
"I really want you to be real, Will," he whispered back -- and his tone had changed completely. There was a desperation to it that I never thought I would hear in his voice, or see in his eyes. He seemed nearly on the verge of tears.   
  
But he did not cry. I hadn't really expected him to. Instead he swallowed very hard and pressed his cheek against my hand, reached up to cup it with his own. For one brief moment he looked almost innocent -- not a hardened, fearsome fugitive from the law; just a man who'd been without comfort for too long, cold and tired and sick of being alone. I never wanted to let go of him.   
  
But he was still soaked to the bone, and shivering harder and harder as the minutes passed. I pressed my lips to his again, very softly. "I'm real, Jack. And you're real, and you're here, and you're sopping wet. Come on," I said, and without waiting for him to respond I lifted him again, brought him to the crude hearth that nonetheless boasted a good, warm, roaring fire. "If I put you down, do you think you can stand on your own?"   
  
Jack furrowed his eyebrows with a shadow of indigence. "Of course I can stand," he assured me, his voice heavy with rum and exhaustion -- and with that he hopped down from my arms of his own accord. I had to catch him before he stumbled into the fire, but once I helped keep him steady he managed to keep his feet under him fairly well "Your problem, Will, is that you worry too damned much," he informed me gravely, leaning precariously to one side and slinging an arm over my shoulder. He didn't seem to be conscious in the least of suffering from the cold, but he was shaking to the very bone even as he giggled drunkenly and threw the majority of his weight against me, as drunk people are wont to do when they have an arm 'round your shoulder and are in high spirits.   
  
"Shut up, Jack," I said, and then I kissed him again to make him do just that, and be still for a moment. Having him here again was overwhelming. He didn't object, however -- in fact he reciprocated with passion, deepening the kiss of his own accord before it finally came to an and. And then he smiled at me -- the most beautiful, wicked, wanton smile -- and said, "Keep that up, darling, and I'm afraid I simply won't be able to resist you." He said this as though he were actually trying to, as though I wanted him to.  
  
For a moment neither one of us said a word, as something unspoken passed between us. I first laid eyes on him in this room. I tried to kill him in this room. Now I would make love to him in this room.  
  
"Why did you come back...?" I whispered.  
  
He was very quiet for a moment, looking at me with the most curious, beautiful mixture of melancholy and heavy thought, and then he said - as though just now realizing it; "...Because I missed you."  
  
There was nothing more to be said. He was here, he was mine; and now the days were melting away by the dozens, until the year and a half we'd spent apart was gone, and nothing that happened between then and now mattered, never had mattered, never'd been real at all. Impossible, that he'd ever been lost to me. He was too familiar, too tangible, too close and whole and perfect. I would have died without him.  
  
I kissed him -- and this time, when our lips parted, I kissed him again. I slid my arms around his waist and I drew him flush against me, kissed him slow and soft and sweetly, over and over. Tossing his hat aside, I savored the taste of him, the smooth skin of his back beneath my fingers as I pulled the soaked and filthy shirt over his head. Jack was much smaller than he appeared to be; he carried himself as though he were a man twice his own size, but beneath the tattered sailors garb he was slender, though as finely muscled as I think it is possible for a man to be. His body had not seen a day without physical labor in the better half of his life, and it showed in the smooth, sinuous lines of his arms, the gently rippled plane of his back, the hardened grid of his stomach; yet from what I could figure when I lifted him he weighed no more than 140 pounds, quite literally soaking wet. A small person, but a strong one. The power in the slender arms around me was unquestionable.   
  
Time itself ebbed away, left us suspended blissfully in it's wake, and the moments seemed like hours as we reclaimed each other with hands and mouths and tongues, stripping away garments until there was nothing between our souls but close-pressed flesh and bone.  
  
Silence, as I laid him down upon my cloak in the corner; silence save for the rain tapping out it's soft staccato against the windowpanes, and the sound of our own, quickened breathing. He was still shivering a bit beneath me, but the chill was melting away from his body even as I ran my hands over it, and he was completely pliant as I kissed his fingers, drew his hands above his head, let my own trail back down the insides of his arms to spread flat against his ribs.   
  
One would never guess Jack to be so passive, so willing to let me do with him as I pleased. He was no blushing innocent, to be sure, but he yielded to me completely and with obvious satisfaction. Captain Jack Sparrow is in control of his own life as much as any man can be -- and if he lets go of the reins for even a second, the consequences have the potential to be quite dangerous, if not outright fatal. Only in these moments does he ever truly give himself over to anything; but when he does, he does so with utter abandon, as though a great, invisible weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Stretching against the cloak and pressing close to me, he wrapped his arms almost lazily around my shoulders, letting his head fall back and his eyes fall shut as I began to trace a path down his torso with my lips.  
  
His skin was smooth and salty to the kiss, his stomach taunt and quivering beneath my lips. Those calloused fingers wound their way easily through strands of my hair, lifting them and letting them fall; shivering against my scalp as I parted his knees gently, then tightening drastically against the back of my neck as my lips finally found their mark.  
  
Captain Jack Sparrow was all mine.  
  
I don't know how long I kept him gasping and writing beneath my ministrations, with one hand firmly knotted in my hair and the other balled into a fist around the cloak beneath him - I only know that it wasn't long enough to give him the release that he whimpered a bit and begged me for as I brought my face back up level with his to kiss him again. His chest was heaving against mine, his eyes very wide and very deep and his lips parted ever so slightly to accommodate his ragged breathing.   
  
"You look perfect, right now," I told him.  
  
"Why are you wasting your time lying to me when you could be kissing me?" Jack asked me in a hushed and heated whisper. He squirmed a bit, trying to reposition himself so that I would keep touching him where he wanted.  
  
"I'm not lying to you. I have no reason to lie to you." I kissed his jaw, his throat, his collarbone. Nuzzling close to me, he whispered against my ear.  
  
"Prove it." It was not a dare, but a plea.  
  
Something in his voice unlocked a door inside me that had been closed for far too long; and I could not have restrained myself in that moment with every ounce of willpower that I possess. I kissed him roughly, cupping his jaw for a moment before I ran both my hands down, over those slender hips, and hitched his thighs up over my hips. Jack wrapped his legs willingly around my waist ... opened his lips to the gentle brush of my fingers, devouring them hungrily and sending shivers through me with the simple flick of his tongue over my knuckles.  
  
He traced the progress of my hand back down his body with his eyes, then lay his head back and shut them again, and his entire form locked beneath me with a sharp gasp when I slid the first finger inside of him. His knuckles were white around the cloak, now, and I allowed him a few moments to adjust to the digit before adding another. God only knew how long it had been since this had been done to him -- his muscles were tight as a drum around my fingers, and I would not at all have been surprised if he'd been with no other man since last we parted.   
  
"Breathe, Jack," I whispered against his ear, and dropped a butterfly kiss to the corner of his mouth.   
  
"Will," he gasped through clenched teeth, his eyes shut tight against the gray light of dawn now seeping through the windows. "Do it. Now."  
  
I could not have been more obliged.  
  
Heaven inside of him. Heaven in the sharp, high-pitched moan that escaped his lips, in the sharp attack of his fingernails against my shoulders. I only moved when he was ready; finding an easy rhythm immediately that he matched with passion; rolling his hips against mine smoothly -- his back arching, relaxing, then arching again as I slid a hand between his legs once more.   
  
Absolute passion. The hiss of human breath in the still morning air, the sheen of sweat on smooth, tanned flesh, the tangling of hair and limbs and souls and the heave of his chest against my own. His breath against my neck, hitched and rushed and intermingled with moans of ecstasy, the pounding of his pulse beneath my fingers as I ran them down his neck; scent of sex, sweat, salt, dreams come true.   
  
It could have been hours, days, weeks or lifetimes. His whimpers rose to moans rose to short, gasping screams; now he was whipping his head back and forth against the cloak, his body shuddering, convulsing beneath me. It would be no more than moments before the tidal wave of ecstasy broke over him in full.  
  
I dropped my weight onto my elbow, brought my hand up to caress his cheek gently, turn his face towards my own. The shudders that wracked him made it all the way to his eyes as he gazed up at me -- and never before have human eyes been so beautiful. This man was the world to me; everything and then some.  
  
"I love you, Jack," I whispered -- and then I kissed him, very, very softly ... trailed my hand down to his hip and anchored his body against mine as I slid as deep inside him as our bodies would allow.  
  
We came together, as one, in the rising light of dawn; our bodies pressed close and our hair in one another's faces. I could feet his heartbeat through his chest, see his ribs with every breath as his muscles finally uncoiled. Drawing my self out and off of him, I stretched out beside him on the thick woolen cloak; letting him come into my arms and curl up against me as I knew he would do. For a few minutes he lay very still and very quiet against my shoulder -- eyes shut, lips parted, fingers limp and curled against my chest. I could nearly feel the exhaustion myself as it finally caught up with him.  
  
And then he opened his eyes, tilted his chin up to look at me, and whispered "... I believe you."   
  
He slept there in my arms, the cloak wrapped around us both and the rain singing lullabies against the windows of the smithy. For a long time I watched him; savored the sight of his handsome face, his features unclouded by consciousness, the innocence of his slumber nearly childlike. I stroked his hair and watched him sleep until I could no longer keep my own eyes open.  
  
And then I kissed his forehead and settled down beside him, and slept in peace for the first time since the stern of the Black Pearl had faded into the distance a year and a half ago.  
  
*** 


	3. From Dream To Dream

Any Port In A Storm  
  
Chapter III : From Dream to Dream  
  
[ colloquial title : Mine ]  
  
***  
  
It seemed as if I did not wake, but simply passed from dream to dream.  
  
The late afternoon sun was pouring through the windows, casting long, dusty beams of light through the indigenous shadows of the smithy. The air close knit and warm and settled like a veil over us, the scent of heated cypress drifting down from the rafters. And Captain Jack Sparrow was asleep in my arms.  
  
He lay with his head tucked under my chin, limbs entangled with mine and his hair trailing softly over my jaw. The cloak had fallen away from us in the night, or perhaps we'd thrown it back as the morning had grown warm, and now the sunlight roamed unchecked over his slender, supple body; highlighting the smooth curve of his side with a nearly ethereal glow and casting soft shadows beneath the angle of his hip. For a long moment I simply lay there, cherishing the rise and fall of his ribs against my own and the warmth of his slow, even breathing against my chest.   
  
How positively peaceful he seemed in slumber; how far flung and distant from the waking Jack Sparrow who seemed, at times, too intense to be human. He was never truly still, awake, and never truly relaxed; a virtual ball of energy with a lightening quick sword hand and a seemingly preternatural tolerance for physical pain. Captain Jack Sparrow; the last real pirate threat left in the Caribbean - uncatchable by officials, unstoppable by cannons, and unpredictable as the day was long.  
  
But here in my arms he was simply Jack - not a terror or a legend but a man like any other; a living, breathing human being that had gone to Hell and back with me to save the one I love, and ended up becoming the one I love instead. A good man. A best friend. A perfect lover. I held him for a long time in the still, warm afternoon and listened to him breathe ... pressed my fingers oh-so-gently to his throat and let his pulse hypnotize me. Alive. He was not a corpse on a rope, somewhere -- not a warning sign to warn off other pirates. He was not starving to death in a prison cell on the other side of the world. Jack Sparrow was alive, and he was beautiful, and he was mine.   
  
I lifted his chin without waking him -- raised his face to mine, pressed a fleeting, butterfly kiss to his lips, and whispered "Mine," against them.   
  
Jack shifted against me ever so slightly in his sleep, his fingers curling faintly again my chest when I kissed him again; coming awake only when I parted his lips with my own. He yielded to the kiss with a soft, sleepy moan. I took his hand in mine, kissed his fingers, drew him closer.   
  
A faint smile crept across his lips as he lay his head against my shoulder, closed his eyes again and whispered; "You know I almost though I was still dreaming?" .  
  
"I almost thought the same. I never thought I'd see you again."  
  
"I never thought you'd want me to..."  
  
The words turned something deep in my stomach. I shifted so that I could see his face. "What do you mean...?"  
  
"Well, here you are, all settled down nice as you please with Elizabeth. You had what your bonnie lass back, and I figured..."  
  
He trailed off into silence. I searched out his eyes, but he would not look at me, and perhaps it was just as well -- for I saw something in them that I had never seen there before, and never want to see again.  
  
Tears.  
  
Captain Jack Sparrow was about to cry.  
  
"Jack, no..." I whispered. "Listen to me." Cupping his jaw very gently in my palm, I lifted his face to meet mine. "I love you, all right? I love Elizabeth, but I'm *in* love with you. Didn't you know it? God, Jack ... when they had you on those gallows ... it's always been you, don't you see? They would have had to kill me to kill you..."  
  
Those dark eyes were fathomless. He looked almost scared to believe me; indeed, I would not have been surprised if he was. In the field of passion he is very much an expert -- and yet knew almost nothing of love. And then the tears spilled over those long, dark lashes, and Jack Sparrow cried for the first time in years.  
  
I let him cry against my chest. He let me kiss him through his tears. He let me gather him close in the crook of my arm, and brush his cheekbones dry with my lips. Silence, save for the hushed sound of his shuddering, uneven breathing. Heartbreaking. How long had it been since he'd allowed himself to cry? How long had he swallowed back these tears, hidden them beneath a layer of lightening quick wit and a charming smile? How long had it been since he'd had a shoulder to cry on?  
  
I made love to him again, slow and gentle in the lazy, late afternoon sunshine. I touched him as though I had never touched anyone else, as though his body were the only thing real to me. I kissed him as I have never kissed Elizabeth. I consecrated his body with my fingertips, burning him into my mind with each caress so that I would never, ever forget these blessed moments when he was mine, and mine alone.   
  
He lay against me when it was over; flushed and tousled, and there are no words to describe the strikingly beautiful portrait he made. The shafts of sunshine slanted at an ever increasing angle across the smithy. Late. It would be dark again, soon. Elizabeth was either panicked, or furious, or both; indeed, I almost wondered why someone hadn't come knocking on the door to find me, yet. I wish I could say that it mattered to me. I wish I could say that I felt guilty, but I didn't.  
  
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I already knew that I wasn't going back to her. I couldn't. Happily Ever After had all been a lie; a last, desperate attempt to deny my blood, my heritage, my fate, and my passion. I was William Turner; son of Bootstraps Bill, lover of Captain Jack Sparrow. I couldn't hide in Port Royale for the rest of my life, keep my back turned on destiny and go on pretending. My place was on the sea. My place was beside him.  
  
Jack stretched lazily in my arms, rolled over and propped himself up on an elbow beside me. For a long moment he simply looked at me, and then he whispered,  
  
"I love you, Will Turner."  
  
There was no other choice for me, now. Going back to Elizabeth would have been a cruelty to all three of us. I couldn't love her the way she wanted me to love her, the way that -- once upon a time - I dreamed of loving her. She was precious to me, and beautiful, and forever would her darling, doll like face hold a dear place in my heart; but to return to her ... to hold her and wish to hold him instead -- this I could not do. I could not lie to her with tender gestures any longer. I had to go Home.  
  
"I love you, Jack Sparrow. And I'm coming with you, this time. I won't lose you again."  
  
Jacks eyebrows drew down and together, knit in an expression of soft confusion. "You're a married man, Will." Small hitch in his voice, though he did well to hide it.  
  
"I am. And I shouldn't be. I should have left Port Royale behind forever the day I helped you escape. I should have dove off the cliff after you. I should have done what my blood told me to do, from the first time I set eyes on you, and followed in my fathers footsteps. I'm coming with you, Jack. When the Black Pearl hauls anchor, I'll be on her deck. I'm done lying to Elizabeth, and I'm done lying to myself. I am my father's son -- and you made me see it, Jack. You're the reason I know who I am."  
  
He grew very, very quiet - drew his eyes away from mine and gazed at nothing at all, lost as deep in thought as I. And then he said,  
  
"Are you going to tell her...?"  
  
"Better that she lament me to unknown tragedy, than know my leave was willful. I don't want to break her, Jack. I do love her. She knows that. And I want to remember me that way -- as a man who loved her -- not the man who broke her heart."  
  
He smiled down at me, very softly and very sadly, and said, "Ever the gentleman."  
  
"Let's go, Jack. Let's go before someone comes looking for me. I want to be gone by the time she truly misses me. I think I'll feel it, if I'm still here in Port Royale. Let's go now, and never come back here. I want the sea. I want you. I want the freedom I was born for."  
  
He kissed me ... and then he smiled; the brilliant, charming, adventurous smile that had won the hearts of so many nameless, faceless women (and most likely men). "You are, indeed, your father's son, mate."  
  
I cherished my last moments in the smithy; remembering, as I dressed, all that had passed within these walls. It was time to leave it behind, now. My fate lay on the horizon. I could feel my father's ghost calling me from the depths of uncharted waters. And so I said good-bye to Port Royale in my mind; tucked it away in the corner of my heart, took his hand, and opened the door...  
  
Six members of the British Royal Navy trained their rifles on us; and Commodore Norrington said, "Jack Sparrow. We meet again."  
  
***  
  
- to be continued - 


	4. Made of Chances

Any Port In A Storm  
  
Chapter IV : Made of Chances  
  
[ colloquial title : death becomes him ]  
  
***  
  
A blind man would have seen it coming. The village idiot would have known it to be foolish. Of course Norrington's men were going to come; the Black Pearl was unmistakable, and God only knew how long I'd been missing. They might have been waiting outside the doors all morning for us, for all I knew.   
  
I'd been a fool; a hopeless, lovesick fool. We could have left the moment the storm let up. He'd been drunk, and cold, but Jack was a pirate. We could have left before sunrise. We could have been leagues away from here, by now, but like a fool I had kissed him when I should have carried him. Like a fool, I'd offered him the safety of my arms when there was no safety to be had. I'd trapped him here with love. Now they had us at the door; and neither Jack nor I had even a split second at our disposal.   
  
Jack is, by no means, a weak man. No one else I know could have taken down three of the six soldiers before they even got a swing in edgewise at him. No one else could have withstood the force of the blow that Gillette struck to his jaw with the butt of his gun. No one else had the iron to spit the blood back in Norrington's face, even as they shackled him. He never even flinched.  
  
I wanted to kill them. I would have killed them. I would have torn them apart with my own teeth if it would have stopped them, but I could not; indeed, it was in the moment they used to grab me that Jack launched his vicious yet short lived assault. I remember it now as though it all happened very, very slowly, when in reality it could not have been more than thirty seconds between the time we opened the door of the smithy and the moment that Jack spit in Norrington's face.  
  
I'd never seen either of them so angry.  
  
Those moments are surreal to me. If any words were spoken, I do not remember them now; but never for a second was I uncertain of the charges against me. The hand with my wedding ring had been in Jack's. Elizabeth, and perhaps Elizabeth alone, was the only reason that I had gone a free man after our first escapade aboard the Black Pearl. Now I had forsaken her for the very worst thorn in Norrington's side. I was a traitor thricefold -- not only to the law, now, but to the very heart.   
  
  
  
I couldn't bear to look at him, as they marched us through town, but I had to. Jack walked with his back very straight and his head very high -- more dignified than I could ever hope to be, despite the blood now pouring down his chin and the gun barrel aimed steadily at his back. There was something burning behind those darkest of dark eyes that I'd never seen there before. He was no longer my Jack. He was Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate and predator; and though each and every one of the Commodore's men -- including the Commodore himself -- were taller than him, Jack somehow seemed larger than life compared to the rest of them. He was more beautiful now than ever.  
  
Governor Swann was waiting for us at the garrison. He looked absolutely horrified. From the very beginning, he'd questioned Elizabeth's decision to marry me; only boundless love for his daughter brought his blessing to the union in the first place. Now he regarded me as though I were something fearsome, incomprehensible.   
  
"I didn't want to believe it, Will," he said.   
  
"A year ago, I granted you clemency. A year ago, I gave my blessings to you. I gave my *daughter* to you. And this is how you repay me? You bring.. *him* here?"  
  
"Begging your pardon, Governor," interjected Jack, his timbre, tone, and enunciation shockingly smooth and even through a mouthful of blood, "but you're giving the boy a bit too much credit, mate. Will didn't 'bring' me anywhere."  
  
"Shut up," hissed Norrington, shoving Jack sharply. He gave the Commodore a decidedly indignant glance over his shoulder, but lapsed back into silence nonetheless. The governor acted as though he hadn't heard him at all.  
  
"I trusted you, Will Turner. Against my better judgment, I trusted you. Elizabeth trusted you. What am I to tell her now, hmm? That her husband has run off with a dog?"  
  
"Tell her," I said quietly, leveling my eyes on his with determination and lifting my chin,"...tell her that a very dear friend of ours showed up in the night. I'm sure she'll be happy for news of him, as she's missed him nearly as much as I."  
  
Governor Swann was shocked. Commodore Norrington was seething. Jack, however, was smiling through the blood. "Tell her, Governor, that Captain Jack Sparrow sends his most heartfelt regards."  
  
"Shut UP, Sparrow!" roared Norrington, dealing him another fine blow to the back of his head and snapping "out with him," to his subordinates; two of which snatched Jack up by the elbows and dragged him backwards. He would be all right. He *had* to be all right. There was nothing I could do for him at the moment. I could only scream to him with my eyes as they dragged him away, scream "I love you" in one last, silent gaze before they pulled him 'round a corner and were gone.   
  
Only now did the governor seem to regain his capacity for speech once more.  
  
"I cannot let this pass, Will. I cannot allow my daughter to take back a traitor into her household. You are young. Youth is malleable. I had hoped, last time, that you would learn from your mistakes. I see now that this was foolish optimism on my part. Take him away."  
  
I didn't have time for any last words; in moments I'd been seized and dragged in very much the same manner as Jack, 'round a corner and down a very long hall that lead to a flight of stairs. It was Gillette that had my right arm, and a man I didn't know on my left; a very burly man with four fingers on his left hand. He was missing his ring finger.  
  
I didn't realize that I had been staring until the burly soldier shoved me roughly towards the stairs. "Keep your eyes front, boy," he growled. Every instinct I had told me to whirl around and choke this man with my very shackles -- but logic kept me calm and complacent. I allowed them to escort me to the dungeons. The closer to Jack, the better -- on our own, maybe neither one of us had a chance in hell; but together, well ... it had seemed impossible last time, too, but we'd made it through alive, had we not?   
  
  
  
It was too dark to see anything right away; I hit the floor with a thud, rolled onto my back, scrambled to my feet immediately and made a charge at the door of the cell as they slammed it shut. No use. The four fingered man laughed as he turned the key in the lock.   
  
"Bad Blood indeed. S'in you too, don't think I can't see it. You lot--"  
  
"That is enough, Spencer," Gillette said, a tense chord of warning in his voice. With one last little snarl, the burly man departed behind him. I peered after them a moment, then looked around. Nothing but the dim blaze of torch light down here to see by -- it took my eyes a moment to adjust, but once they did I began to realize the extent of my predicament. At the end of the hallway was a bolted door, no doubt guarded on the outside by soldiers. The only windows provided only ventilation, too narrow and deep set to let in much light at all -- indeed, at this hour, with the sun quickly dropping, they were dark. The doors were much heartier than the ones in the upper cells. There was no good way out of this place.  
  
As if mimicking my thoughts, a voice said from the darkness, "You're wasting your energy, mate. Best chance we've got is to wait 'till they bring us out to hang us."  
  
Jack sat against the far wall of the adjoining cell, his knees drawn up and his shackled wrists draped casually across them. He rolled his head back against the cold stone to turn and look at me. His lips were still caked with blood, but he smiled anyway. "It's just you and me, darling."  
  
"Jack... I'm so sorry--"  
  
He cut me off with a dismissive flip of one hand. "No worries, luv."  
  
"I should have brought you back to the Pearl. We could have been gone by now. But I kept you here, and now--"  
  
A soft, low chuckle -- the last thing I expected -- and then Jack said, "You underestimate me, William Turner."  
  
"You seem to be confusing me with your darling Elizabeth. My sensibilities aren't so ... easily swayed ... by rum and kisses. I was awake at dawn. I watched you sleep. I could have left Port Royal without even waking you. I didn't. Why? I didn't want to. I wanted to sleep next to you for a while longer. I wanted the luxury of it, and chances be damned. I'm a pirate, Will. My life is made of chances; but chances are made of choices, savvy? And I chose to stay."  
  
I can't say that I was not shocked; in fact I fell silent for many minutes to pass, letting his words ring in a steady reverberation inside my head. Could have left. Chose to stay. Could have left...  
  
All at once he was kneeling before me, only inches away despite the bars that separated us. His features were shrouded primarily by shadows and a bit by the blood, but the scant torch light seemed to collect in his eyes, reflect back at me in the darkness. "I chose you, Will. I chose you before I knew who you were. You want the truth? I would have brought you aboard the Pearl, willing or not; Elizabeth, too, if I could have. The fact that you decided the same on your own only seals it. I was right to stay here; even if it means that we only die together... I was right."  
  
He took my hand through the bars ... kissed my fingers. "You're mine, as well, Will Turner. If I have to die to have you, I'll do it. Death doesn't scare me. It never has. And the selfish man that I am, I'm willing to take you with me into it. Because I love you. And if I cant have you, no one will. If we die, we die together."  
  
"We're not going to die here. Not like this." I reached out and cupped his face in my palm, pressed my own face to the bars of the cell. "By their swords, maybe, but not by their nooses. My father died a pirates death. And so shall I. And so shall you. Let it come when it may, but mark my words, it won't be on their gallows. I'm with you, Jack. Its just us, now. All us, now."  
  
"They don't know what they're up against," he whispered; and then he kissed me through the bars; drew up close, closed his eyes, and kissed me as he'd kissed me that first night, on the deck of the Black Pearl.   
  
Our shackles wound together, wrapping hopelessly 'round the bars between us until we were nearly tied together. Didn't matter. I kissed him for hours in the darkness, and chains be damned -- he was mine, I was his, and we were locked to each other 'till death do us part now. This was marriage, true marriage -- marriage of the soul, an unbreakable bond formed of love and hate and necessity, of sweetness and softness, of blood and of metal. Made of oaths, made of history, made of fate. This was destiny.  
  
"Tomorrow ... when the sun rises, they'll come. Mark my words -- they always come at dawn. Do nothing, absolutely *nothing* to rouse their suspicions. It'll take them three days to write up the formal decree. Complacency is key until we're literally on the gallows, savvy?"  
  
"Wait until the opportune moment."  
  
"Exactly. Now get some sleep. Sometimes they'll say things they shouldn't when they think you're asleep."  
  
Long before dawn, however, the dungeon door swung open. I'd heard them all the way down the hall -- loud, drunken voices and stumbling footsteps. Now over half a dozen soldiers came staggering through the door -- all highly intoxicated and slightly disheveled, as though they'd been wandering around in such a state for the better part of the evening. I stayed very still, cracking only one eye through which to watch them. Nearby, Jack's breathing remained slow and steady, but something in it told me that he was as wide awake as I was.  
  
"-- worst bloody thing I've ever seen, mate. 'Er screamin' haunts me even now, I'll tell ye-- ahh. The man himself. See here, gents, this is where the tale takes a twist; for it was yonder scurvy dog who done it."  
  
A four fingered hand gestured to Jack in the torch light.  
  
The pack of soldiers grew suddenly silent. I could almost hear Jack's eyes open.  
  
"Six years ago it was, but I 'member 'im as though it were yesterday. You don't forget the man who burns yer house, rapes yer daughter, and takes yer bloody wedding ring from ye, finger and all."  
  
***  
  
- to be continued - 


	5. A Dog in Sheeps Clothing

Any Port In a Storm  
  
Chapter V : A Dog in Sheep's Clothing  
  
[colloquial title : the rarest kind of good ]   
  
***  
  
Frozen moments; suspended like dead men from nooses in my memory. The fibers of every nightmare that I have ever had would not be enough to weave Horrors akin to these. Horror it was, indeed; sheer horror, driving rivets through my eyes so that I could not look away. Every moment remains, to this day, etched in vivid detail on the inside of my skull; ghastly images burn against my inner eyes when I reach the threshold of the dreamscape -- flickering torchlight and ugly shadows cast across sneering, drunken faces ... his fingers, curled into the dirt of the cell like claws ... the gasping, the cursing, and the blood. Oh, the blood.   
  
I had never held any delusions about Jack; I'd known all along what he was, and what he was capable. I was well aware that I had fallen in love with a thief and a murderer. Captain Jack Sparrow hadn't earned his reputation simply from looting and pillaging; when the Black Pearl took on a port, it's crewmen razed it to the ground. They left no stone unturned, no house un-looted, and no pretty girl a virgin. Jack either did things, or he didn't; if he was going to raid a city, he did it in true pirate fashion -- faster, greedier, and more ruthless than the last time.   
  
But I'd pondered the details of it, never truly considered how many lives had been shattered at his hands. Jack was the rarest kind of Good that a man could be; for although he could nothing short of cruel, he was also nothing short of loyal -- once, of course, he felt that you'd earned it. He would go to Hell and back and Hell again for those distinctly rare few that earned his respect, his affections, and his trust. He'd done it for me, and for Elizabeth, and for this I loved him. I had fallen in love with him. He was a liar, a thief, a cutthroat and a killer -- but he was Mine, and he was beautiful, and he had gone to the ends of the earth for me and then come back again a second time. I would not have left him, then, even if I could have.   
  
The four fingered soldier called Spencer was the first one through the door of his cell -- no sooner had he made it over the threshold, than he dealt Jack a swift and shocking blow to the stomach with the sole of his boot. Jack, who had still been feigning sleep, sensed the blow coming one fraction of a second too late; before he had time to utter a word, he was curled up and gasping.   
  
"You remember me, *Captain* Sparrow?" This time, the boot connected with his jaw. The rest of the leering, drunken crew had assembled itself behind Spencer - one of them slammed shut the cell door with a resounding clang that sent shivers down my spine.   
  
Jack, who was still incapable of making any noise save for an unnatural wheeze, did not respond. Spencer leaned down and grabbed a handful of his hair -- yanked his head up and brandished the other, crippled hand before his face. Jack gritted his teeth, exhaled in a fine spray of blood, and with a mammoth gasp managed to hiss "Why 'ello, Davey. How's the wife?"   
  
"You son of a BITCH!" roared Spencer, slamming him to the floor again. Jack had recovered his wits quite quickly; he rolled away from him and sprang to his feet -- put a safe distance between himself and the posse, which placed him with his back nearly touching the bars that separated our cells. Only from this close could I tell that he was shaking a little. Nevertheless, I could nearly hear that cattish and infuriating smile light his features.   
  
"Speaking of that ... however did Young Jack turn out? I do hope he has my nose, at least."   
  
His backbone slammed against my fingers a split second later, trapping them painfully between his weight and the bars. Spencer had absolutely lost control of himself, now; hurtling across the cell and screaming curses in a blind rage, he swung at Jack for all he was worth.   
  
All the kings horses and all the kings men, however, did not possess the combined combat experience that Captain Jack Sparrow possessed by himself. Ducking the first swing, he came up with both wrists upturned and braced together, cracking Spencer dead on in the mouth with the iron manacles and shoving him backward with a knee to the groin.   
  
I thought I had seen Rage in Jack, when he spit the blood into Norrington's face. I had been wrong. This was something ten times as heated, as sinister, as deadly.   
  
"Don't push your luck with me, Davey. You lived because she begged for your life, and nothing more. I always knew you were rotten luck. Look at you now, in your dashing red coat. You look right the part, don't you? And they don't know, I'm sure. None of them know, or else you'd be on the gallows aside me in three days time, eh?"   
  
Silence. For a moment, no one moved, including me. And then Spencer said, in a decidedly less confident voice.   
  
"I've changed my ways."   
  
"Have you? See, that's the difference between you and I. I'm a dog and I know it. You're a dog in sheeps' clothing. You pretended to love her, and you brought her those rings. You remember the rings, don't you Davey? And I bet you remember where they came from, too, don't you? You care to tell your mates here about that?"   
  
"I don't--"   
  
"You see here, gents... Mr. Spencer here and I are old, old friends. He sailed under me on the Pearl for ... what was it, Davey, four years? Something close to that. Honestly, I thought you lot could smell a pirate by now."   
  
He turned his full attention, now, to Spencer; who had drawn back into the safety of the ranks and looked a bit more than nervous. Jack advanced on him, bearing down slowly as he spoke.   
  
"And a bloody awful pirate, you were. You pissed on the Code, mate; and you pissed in my eye when you took her as your wife."   
  
"You didn't love her, either."   
  
"Didn't I?"   
  
Impossible, to see clearly what happened next. Pandemonium exploded like the crack of a cannon. The only two things that were clear were these; one, Jack had dealt the initial blow and, two, Spencer lost at least three teeth in the first . 03 seconds of the ensuing violence. I know this because two of them landed quite close to me, and another pinged off the bars some distance to my left.   
  
When it was over, the majority of the guards were bleeding, as well, and they had Jack - bleeding by far the hardest, save perhaps for Spencer - firmly in their grip. Two held him by his upper arms, two more my the elbows, and one clamped a hand 'round the back of his neck from behind. It took Spencer a few moments to recover, and Jack regarded him with a steady, iron glare in the meantime.   
  
"Love, Sparrow? You don't know a thing about love. You've never had a child. I could forgive you the finger. It was your bloody ring anyway. Damn the ring, and damn Grace. Damn all of you. But Jane ... you'll burn for what you did to her. I'll see to it that you burn."  
  
"Your daughter was a whore, Davey. She begged for it."  
  
The crack of Spencer's knuckles against Jack's face echoed through the dungeons, and faded into momentary silence. Now the soldier was very, very close to Jack's face; teeth bared, he hissed.  
  
"You want a whore? I'll make you a whore."  
  
"Strip him down, gents."   
  
***   
  
- to be continued - 


	6. Don't Watch

Any Port In a Storm  
  
Chapter VI : d o n ' t w a t c h  
  
[ colloquial title : Hammurabi's Code ]  
  
Authors Notes : This is not pretty. I tried my hardest to keep everything eloquently worded; you've already seen examples of how I write a love scene, and you should not expect wording any more graphic than what you have already been part to, on that count. However - there is violence, and lots of it, and a lot of very disturbing content that might not be for everyone. My warning at the end of Chapter Five was not simply for the sake of hearing my own keyboard keys click; I reiterate -- if rape *might* disturb you, please wait for Chapter VII. By the time I choose to post this, it should already be well in the works, and you won't have very long to wait. Get ready for a change of pace; something different, and refreshingly so, in my opinion. But for now, tread with caution.  
  
***  
  
"Strip him down, gents."  
  
I cannot truly put into words the subtle yet drastic change that took place behind Jack's eyes. Something hardened at the same time as it broke. Something confident and confrontational receded, while something grim and determined took it's place. It was the same expression that he had worn when he'd realized that the Black Pearl had not waited for him, and that he had nowhere else to go but to the gallows. He kept his eyes very steady on Spencer - who was still nursing his injured mouth -- as his captors tore his shirt from him, untied his sash with rough, jerky hands.  
  
"NO!" I cried.  
  
"Shut up, Will," said Jack, and I have never heard his voice so cold and final before.  
  
It was too late, however. Perhaps Spencer had not even noticed me until now, but he turned at the sound of my voice.  
  
"Turner. I know you. I knew your father. Bad blood, boy. You deserve same as he's gettin', just for being alive." He spat into the dirt of which the cell floor was comprised, snarled a bloody, tooth deprived snarl at me in the torch light. Jack's eyes had grown very, very wide as he stared at Spencer's back. He made a little lunge forward, but the five soldiers restrained him all too easily.  
  
"The pot calls the kettle black," I spat back, my fingers clenching into fists around the bars of the cell.  
  
"Shut UP, Will," growled Jack through gritted teeth.  
  
"Mighty protective, your little friend there," hissed Spencer to Jack. "Mighty pretty, too. Perhaps when we're finished with you, we'll give him a go, eh?" A few of his cohorts chuckled and threw me sordid looks.  
  
"Keep your bloody hands off of him," Jack snarled, redoubling his efforts and lunging forward again.  
  
Spencer moved too fast for me to see; one second the two were standing squared off -- the next Jack was doubled over in agony, with the soldier's knee still firmly wedged between his legs. "Then keep your bloody mouth shut. Have at him, gents."  
  
Jack did not say another word.   
  
Silent, as his captors deftly undressed him from the waist down. Silent, as the drunken rabble began to touch him -- a slow, disgusting rise of chatter and filthy laughter as the rest of the pack, save for Spencer, began to closed in to run their clumsy hands over his skin. Jack gritted his teeth as one of them pulled him back into a sickeningly animalistic embrace, biting at his neck and running ten thick, dirty, covetous fingers over the planes of his chest and stomach. He wasn't looking at any of them. He wasn't looking at Spencer. He was looking straight at me.  
  
And when my eyes met his, Jack said,  
  
"Don't watch."   
  
But how could I tear my gaze away? Their hands were all over him now; on arms and chest and stomach, on his hips and thighs, between his legs. Jack shut his eyes, now, shuddering as a large, burly hand massaged the most tender parts of him roughly -- as another pulled his arms over his head and held them there by the chain of his shackles. He wasn't fighting them anymore. Jaw clenched and muscles locked, he was only trying to bear it in silence. The fingers clawed at him, left blood tinged trails in their wake; someone bit his ear, another his nipple, and yet a third ran their tongue down his jugular. Head clamped firmly by his hair in their grip, there was nothing he could do but allow it. Still, he did not make a sound.   
  
"Jack..."  
  
He didn't tell me to be silent, this time, for it was doubtful that he even heard me over the awful, filthy things that they leaned close to whisper in his ears. Instead it was Spencer who shot me a mirthless, venomous grin. He stalked 'cross the cell towards me. I hated this man for absolutely everything -- including being a fair side taller than me. Lifting my face to meet his, I maintained firm stance against the bars.  
  
"You would do well, lad, to mind this lesson well, 'afore you find yourself obliged to learn it by experience."  
  
I had a thousand and one things to spit back at him right on the tip of my tongue; but in the split second that it took me to settle on the best of them, Jack let out a sickening gasp. One of the soldiers had drawn the blade of their dirk across his ribs, leaving a thin trail of blood in it's wake. Once again, Spencer seemed to have forgotten all about my presence; he'd grabbed the knife in a second, tossed it away from him across the cell.   
  
"You leave that to me, understood? Don't cut him. And don't touch his mouth."  
  
"But D--"  
  
"DON'T ... touch his mouth, Randolph. You can have his filthy arse -- fuck it, cut him to pieces -- but don't you dare touch his mouth." And with that, Spencer took up lean against the cell door -- one arm crossed over his chest and the other hand still stifling the blood flow from his mouth. His eyes drank up the scene with obvious satisfaction, as the rest of the soldiers flipped coins to determine who 'got 'im first'.  
  
... Frozen moments; suspended like dead men from nooses in my memory. The fibers of every nightmare that I have ever had would not be enough to weave Horrors akin to these. Horror it was, indeed; sheer horror, driving rivets through my eyes so that I could not look away. Every moment remains, to this day, etched in vivid detail on the inside of my skull; ghastly images burn against my inner eyes when I reach the threshold of the dreamscape -- flickering torchlight and ugly shadows cast across sneering, drunken faces ... his fingers, curled into the dirt of the cell like claws ... the gasping, the cursing, and the blood.   
  
Oh, the blood.  
  
They traded him off; half a dozen of them held him down, while each one took him in turn -- and it seemed that every one of them was bigger, rougher, and crueler than the last. Some of them wanted him on all fours, and some wanted him on his back. Still others wanted him thrown up against the wall of the dungeon; digging their fingernails into his hips and slamming his face against the cold, dirty stone. They groped him, bit him, slapped him, cut him. They stole from him what I doubted that he had ever willingly given another man, save for me. They took the body I so cherished and laid waste to it, tearing him apart from the inside out as they laughed and cursed and called him a whore. This was not hate; these men did not hate him. They simply did not care. Driven only by lust and rum-stoked aggression, they took the man I loved, and they raped him one by one.  
  
Jack barely made a sound.  
  
He shuddered, and cringed, and gasped through gritted teeth -- whimpering only when any normal man would have passed out in agony. The repeated, violent torment that he bore in virtual silence was incomprehensible. And when it was over ... when the last one had left him spent and bleeding on the floor of the cell, Spencer said,  
  
"Perhaps now you -- and your pretty friend as well -- have seen my point."  
  
"But now it's my turn, Sparrow."  
  
As if they had planned it -- and I'm not entirely sure that they hadn't -- two of the soldiers hauled a now exhausted Jack to his knees. Spencer stepped forward, a scabbed and ugly smile twisting his entire face into a mask of demented satisfaction. Chest heaving, Jack gritted his teeth and met his eyes boldly.  
  
"Open your mouth, whore, and taste revenge."  
  
"Fuck you," gasped Jack, his voice nothing but a hoarse rasp in the back of his throat.  
  
"And fuck Jane."  
  
The smile on Spencer's face morphed into a hideous snarl; with a growl that did not sound human, took hold of Jack's hair and wrenched his head forward, while one of the soldiers pried his jaw open with the hilt of their dagger.   
  
The final horror; and oh, what a Horror it was.  
  
The rest of them laughed, and resumed their cruel and clumsy groping. They held his head stock still as Spencer defiled him, their laughter rising to a roar as Jack choked and struggled to breathe--  
  
--only now could I look away; and it seemed not a choice, but sheer instinct.  
  
I only raised my head when it was over -- opening my eyes as Jack's body slammed to the dirt for the final time. He landed on his back, and -- free of torment for the first moment in the better part of two hours or more -- instantly rolled onto his side. I could see the struggle in him; the war he waged with his own instincts to keep from curling into a ball, and the way he set his jaw to keep silent. Spencer moved in for the kill once more -- placing one boot sole roughly against the side of Jack's head and forcing his face into the dirt.  
  
"What do you think of your dashing pirate friend now, eh Turner?"  
  
Jack was looking at me.  
  
Spencer held his entire, wasted body prone with the boot against his head. Now that he was still, I could see the shudders that wracked him to the very bone. Fingers limp and bloody against the dirt, he was staring at me with the most desperate mixture of sorrow and fear.  
  
I looked straight into Jack's eyes, and said to Spencer.  
  
"I think that he's perfect."  
  
The roar of laughter from the soldiers drown out Jack's whimper of pain as Spencer dealt him one swift and final kick to the back.  
  
"You're both fools."  
  
"You're all cowards," I snarled. "It took nine of you to rape a man in chains?"  
  
"Hammurabi's code, lad," sneered Spencer. "Eye for an eye."  
  
And before I could respond, he and his cohorts were departing; filing through the cell gate and kicking it shut behind them. Spencer himself turned the key in the lock.  
  
"Sleep well, Jackie," were his departing words.  
  
Only when their voices had faded away completely, did Jack allow himself to breathe again.  
  
I don't know how he managed to drag himself across the floor of the cell, but he did -- collapsing in utter exhaustion against the bars that separated us and reaching through them with five trembling fingers for my hand. I hadn't expected him to come to me. I had expected him to curl up in the furthest corner of his cell, mute and shivering, but now he whispered, "I'm sorry, Will..."  
  
I reached through the bars and drew him to me as best I could, stroking his hair softly and kissing his forehead. "Shhh. Don't force your voice, love."  
  
He cried silently, and only a little -- his face pressed to my chest through the bars -- before he lost consciousness. I cannot say that he fell asleep, because sleep would have been impossible for any functional human being; rather he was simply so drained that his body gave up on him, and until sunrise he was spared the torture of his wounds.  
  
I did not let go of him.  
  
***  
  
- to be continued - 


	7. A Sword Not Yet Wrought

Any Port In a Storm   
  
Chapter VII : A Sword Not Yet Wrought   
  
[ colloquial title : through the bars ]   
  
***  
  
Curse the bars that parted us.   
  
I couldn't really hold him. I couldn't keep him warm. The dungeons had a chill to them, a chill that came from the damp walls and lack of sunlight. Even I was cold, and Jack had not even the thin, fundamental shield of clothing between his skin and the cool, damp air. More than anything I wanted to hold him; to pull him close to me and let him soak up my body heat, but I could not. I could only hold his hand through the bars, and stroke his hair, and soothe him as best I could when he struggled in vain to press closer to me.   
  
The sun was rising; the faint glow around the rim of the high, slitted window told me as much. The guards would come back, soon -- and what they would make of the scene that would meet them, I didn't know and didn't care. I only knew that if anyone laid so much as a hand on him, I would find a way to kill them.   
  
Jack had not said a word past "I'm so sorry," to me. Slipping in and out of consciousness in the darkness, he had remained with his face pressed against my chest, and only his breathing told me when he was awake and when he was not. I talked to him, when I knew that he could hear me. It didn't matter if he didn't talk back -- his hand relaxed ever-so-slightly in mine when I spoke, and his breath came a bit easier. There was no telling whether he would have the strength to fight when the time came; indeed, I began to worry, as dawn rose, about whether he would have the strength to eat, when someone finally decided to feed us. There was no way for me to make a true assessment of the damage that had been done to him, what with the cursed bars that parted us.   
  
Footsteps. Jack tensed before I even heard them -- but now they were getting closer, slowing to a halt just outside the doors of the dungeon. A key turned in the lock. Jack's knuckles went white around my hand.   
  
"Easy, love," I whispered softly against his hair, my eyes trained on the door as it opened.   
  
Two guards that I'd never seen before -- one very tall and almost handsome, the other very short and squat. At first, they paid us not the slightest bit of notice -- one of them carried two trays of food, the other a pistol and a set of keys. One of them was telling the other about some lass that he'd picked up at the tavern the night before, and the other one was warning him of her scandalous reputation.   
  
"I'm tellin' you, mate," said the taller guard, turning to slide the first tray beneath Jacks cell door, "she's nothing but a-- what in the...?"   
  
What a sight we must have been; Captain Jack Sparrow, the infamous living legend, stripped and bleeding and huddled against the bars of the cell, his face pressed to my chest ... and William Turner, the silly young blacksmith who ran off to play pirate and came back with his tail between his legs, staring them down as though daring them to come any closer.   
  
"What in blazes 'appened 'ere?" asked the small, squat soldier, still standing aghast against the far wall of the dungeon.   
  
They were both staring at us, wide eyed and slack jawed in a combination of confusion and horror -- but nothing in their stance or expressions hinted at hostility. Jack remained frozen against me, his jaw set as though ready to receive a blow. The moments that passed in silence stretched thin and tense between us in the damp air. But what was I supposed to say?   
  
"Do you know a David Spencer?" I finally asked them.   
  
"Dave, yeah..." said the shorter of the two, his eyebrows furrowing even deeper in confusion. His companion remained crouched at the door of Jack's cell, watching us with grave, anxious eyes.   
  
"He did this. He came here last night, with a pack of others. He's got a personal grudge against Jack, because he used to be a pirate, too. He's been lying to all of you. He did this."   
  
Jack tensed more and more with every word that I spoke, and I could tell that he wanted nothing more than for me to simply shut my mouth. I didn't care. Stroking his hair protectively, I met the taller guard's eyes, now. "I didn't think that the British Royal Navy would ever stoop so low."   
  
"Neither did I," said the man, his eyes darkening as he rose to his feet. "Daniels... go, and locate Commodore Norrington. Tell him that I shall be there within the hour with matters of the utmost importance to discuss. Then see if you can find Spencer - I daresay you'll find him in one tavern or another."   
  
"Aye, Captain."   
  
The short, squat soldier departed, now, as the remaining drew closer to us. He was, indeed, one of the tallest men that I had ever seen; he had to stoop under some of the lower slung beams.   
  
"First, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Steven Fairweather - captain in the Royal British Fleet. Second, please allow me to extend my deepest regrets and apologies on behalf of the British Royal Navy. Actions such as Private Spencer's are neither condoned or tolerated under our code of conduct. Rest assured that all the proper inquiries shall be made. I would assume that Commodore Norrington will want to speak with the both of you himself. Until that time, however, I shall see to it that you both receive nothing but fair and humane treatment."   
  
I didn't know whether to trust him or not. The fact that he believed me, alone, was suspect. We were criminals, implicating one of their own. Whispering a few soft words to Jack, I said, "Fair and humane? Then at least give him a blanket, for gods sake."   
  
Something in Fairweather's pale, gray eyes softened. "He'll need more than blankets. I'll fetch a doctor."   
  
He was halfway to the door, when Jack said.   
  
"You're a Captain, too, then..."   
  
His voice was very hoarse, and barely more than a whisper, but Fairweather heard him nonetheless. He turned 'round, seeming startled yet hiding it fairly well when he found Jack's eyes on him. And then he said;   
  
"Yes. Yes... I'm a Captain, too."   
  
"Have your own ship?"   
  
"I do..." Fairweather said quietly.   
  
"What's her name?" asked Jack. His chest was heaving, as though speaking required a great deal of effort.   
  
"The Redeemer." The faintest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Fairweather's mouth, and mirrored itself on Jack's bruised face a moment later.   
  
"The Redeemer. You love her, then - I can see it."   
  
"She's a fine ship..."   
  
"I've no doubt she is. Listen... Captain to Captain..." said Jack. "No doctors, all right?"   
  
"Jack," I said in a hushed tone, "you need to--"   
  
"I've never seen a doctor in me life - and I don't want to start like this, savvy? All I want is that blanket."   
  
"Understood, Captain Sparrow..."   
  
Something passed between their eyes, then, in the moment before Fairweather ducked out the door -- and then Jack leaned against me again, closing his eyes as though worn out from the conversation and sliding his hand into mine once more. It didn't take him long to return. Jack jumped and flinched as the door opened, again. Fairweather stopped where he was for a second, and looked at both of us for a very long time, with an unreadable expression. Finally he turned, very decisively, and opened the door of my cell.   
  
"If I take off the shackles, Mr. Turner, can you see to him? I must meet with the Commodore."   
  
It took me a minute to realize that he was giving me the one and only thing that I wanted. He was taking away the bars between us.   
  
"Leave him to me," I said.   
  
I could tell that Jack would have rather chewed off his own hand than let go of me -- he shivered as I released his hand, and watched me with anxious eyes as Fairweather lead me politely by the elbow 'round to the door of his cell. Once inside, he took the shackles off of my wrists, then turned to do the same for Jack - who extended his wrists almost desperately, and brought one protectively to his chest with the opposite hand as soon as he'd been released. "Do the best you can, for now," said Fairweather. "I assure you that I shall return by nightfall."   
  
When the dungeon door shut behind him, Jack said, "You should have run."   
  
He was huddled against the wall, now, with his arms wrapped around his waist. I could barely see his face in the shadows; only his eyes were clear, dark and tired and still filled with pain. "When he opened your door ... you should have run."   
  
"Shut up, Jack," I whispered. "Just shut up..." -- and then I gathered him in my arms as I had longed to do all night long, wrapped the blanket around him and held him close to me, with no bars to part us. "I'm with you. I'm staying with you. What kind of man do you think I am, that I could leave you here? I love you. I love you, and nothing will ever change that. Jack ... look at me."   
  
It took a fair amount of coaxing to get him to lift his face -- but when he finally did, I kissed him very, very, very gently.   
  
"I love you, all right? I wish it had been me, and not you."   
  
"Don't say that," he whispered, reaching up to curl his fingers through my hair. "I'll be all right, luv. These wounds will heal. But had it been you..."   
  
It was he who kissed me, then -- drawing me down to meet his lips and wrapping one arm around my neck; and now his face was blurring, as my own eyes slowly filled with tears.   
  
"Oh come now, luv, don't cry on account of me...."   
  
"But what they did to you--"   
  
"--Was something that I brought upon myself. I told you, Will - my life is made of chances. I have enemies aplenty. Most of the time I'm ungodly lucky -- but everyone's luck falters, here and there. And if a man cannot face all of the possible repercussions of his actions, that man should not take those chances at all. Don't cry for what can't be changed."   
  
They had hurt him, yes; and it was doubtful that he would ever fully forget the pain of that horrible, horrible night -- but it took much more than the cruelty of nine drunken, spiteful men to break the will of Captain Jack Sparrow. Beneath the layers of blood and pain and exhaustion, the flame of strength and dignity still burned bright as ever in the depths of those dark eyes. He was already healing, body and soul. Once again, I had underestimated him; for now that I could see his eyes, there was no doubt in my mind that, when the proper chance presented itself, Jack would be perfectly capable of fighting his way to freedom. To break a will like his would take a sword of horror not yet wrought by even the darkest, cruelest recesses of the human mind.   
  
"I don't know how you do it, Jack. Any other man that I know would have broken, last night."   
  
Jack leaned his head back against my shoulder, smiled up at me through the bruises and the dried blood with that signature smile that was still the most wickedly beautiful thing I had ever seen, and said,   
  
"You're forgetting one thing, mate. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."   
  
I almost laughed through my fast receding tears. Jack shifted a bit in my arms, his smile tightening into a cringe as he did so.   
  
"You're Captain Jack Sparrow who still needs to rest, and to eat."   
  
Indeed; only now did the rations that Fairweather and Daniels had brought us hold any interest whatsoever. Stretching one arm as far as it would go without having to shift Jack, I managed to snag the edges of the tin plates with the tips of my fingers and drag them towards us. "You should eat all of this," I told him.   
  
"I've recovered from far worse, under far worse conditions, luv."   
  
"Because you've had to. You've got me, now," I said.   
  
It seemed once again as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders as he sighed and closed his eyes a moment.   
  
"And you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."   
  
I kissed him softly. "And the second best will be this food."   
  
"I'm not so sure about that," said Jack, casting a dubious glance sideways at the plate of bread and boiled meat -- both of which looked decidedly less than fresh. "I mean ... that right there could very well be our punishment, mate. What if they don't hang us at all, and just feed us that lot until we die?"   
  
Now I laughed outright; laughed because Jack could always make me laugh, no matter what -- and with that, we both took up our plates. Jack stayed curled up against me, picking off of both my plate and his -- his appetite seeming to creep back with each bite of the food that was not nearly as bad as it looked and smelled.   
  
He was going to be all right. We were going to be all right, and we would get out of here yet, one way or another.   
  
Only now did I realize that there had been a question nagging at the back of my mind all along; drown out by horror and worry, it surfaced slowly in the silence relative silence as we ate. Finally, when the plates had been put aside and Jack was resting in relative comfort against my shoulder, I put it into words.   
  
"Can I ask you something, Jack? You don't have to answer..."   
  
"You've just asked me something, right there -- but you can ask me something else, if you like."   
  
"Who was Grace...?"   
  
***   
  
- to be continued - 


	8. Silk, Lace and Bloody Propriety

Any Port In a Storm  
  
Chapter VII :  
  
[ colloquial title : ]  
  
***  
  
Two households, both alike in dignity,   
  
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,   
  
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,   
  
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.   
  
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes   
  
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;   
  
Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows   
  
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.   
  
***  
  
He came to her door at first light. Right away, she knew what she had to do.  
  
One might have thought that a delicate creature like Ms. Swann would have been shocked to fainting upon receiving word that her husband had been imprisoned for harboring the most fearsome pirate left in the Carribean. Pirates were supposed to scare young ladies. But Elizabeth was, in fact, not a delicate creature at all; she simply looked the part. And she had absolutely no fear of pirates, either.  
  
Quite the contary; every living pirate that she had ever known - and one that had spent a short time dead, as well - had been, at their very cores, Good People. Granted, many a man would argue heartily with Elizabeth's definition of "good" - but what's in a name? Capulet, Montague; two houses, both alike in dignity, yet each an afrontment to Good in by one another's standards. Good was what you made of it. Good depended on the circumstances.  
  
She didn't look up from her book as her father laid the news regretfully before her. Mockery. The Governor had never approved of Will, anyway. Save your regretful tones for those who'll believe them. He'd shown her beloved husband the absolute minimun of required acceptance in the past year - keeping him on the fringes in public and at arms length in private. Will, who was sometimes too good hearted for his own well being, harbored him no resentment for the lack of warmth. He loved her, he said, and needing her father's approval was the last thing on his mind. Even so, he was all too understanding, and it made Elizabeth doubly furious when he turned the other cheek so benignly at her father's repeated cold shoulder - furious not at Will, but at her father.  
  
That was why she left him to wait a few, tense moments in silence before she said, "You do understand, father, that if you harm either one of them I shall never speak with you again."  
  
"Elizabeth, darling. You must understand--"  
  
"No, father, it is you who must understand; harm a hair on either of their heads, and I promise you that you have seen the last of me."  
  
Governor Swann puffed up like a large, tropical bird in a powdered wig. "Now see here, darling, I understand that you--"  
  
"You doubt me. You look at me, and you see a silly little girl, don't you? I'm not a little girl anymore, father. I am a married woman. And mark my words - harm my husband, and I am no longer your daughter. Since our very wedding day you've shown him nothing but thinly veiled distain, and I have held my tounge only out of my dying respect for you. Hurt Will, or Jack, for that matter - who if you would be so kind as to remember, saved not only my life, but yours - and you severe the last thin threads of respect that bind me to you."  
  
Her father was shocked into silence, frozen momentarily in place before the heat of anger and indignance melted the chill of surprise from his features.   
  
"You dare!"  
  
"Dare to what, father? Fufill the vows of my marriage?"  
  
"I am your father, Elizabeth!"  
  
"Harm them, and you shall be so no longer."  
  
"Renounce me, and you shall be alone in this world, Elizabeth. Renounce me and you have nothing."  
  
"I'll have more than you've ever given me. Take your grand house, your fine clothes, your silk and your lace and your bloody sense of propriety. Take every cent you've ever given me, and burn it; I'll not lift a finger to stop you. But as God as my witness, father - take my husband, and I take my leave of you."  
  
"You don't mean this. You need to rest, darling. I understand how very hard this--"  
  
"You would be a fool, indeed, to test the honesty of my words."  
  
"Elizabe--"  
  
"Get out of my house."  
  
Silence.  
  
"Go. I have nothing more to say to you. Stella" - her colored servingwoman seemed to materialize out of nowhere - "please see my father here to his carriage."  
  
"I should have cast him back into the ocean."  
  
"I don't know you," said Elizabeth. "And I never have. The house is your, but Stella stays with me. Goodbye, Governor Swann." And with that, she left the drawing room.  
  
She listened for the sound of his shoes on the front steps, and as soon as she heard them, Elizabeth put her plan into action. It wasn't hard to think and argue with her father at the same time. Elizabeth thought vert fast, and her father argued very slowly. Right away, she knew what she had to do. Bickering with her father had only given her time to fine tune the unfortunate necessities in her mind. Now she ascended to her chambers with a brisk, purposeful stride - not thinking about Jack, or Will, but only about the process that lay ahead. She did not allow herself to worry for them, as the pulled open her wardrobe, and dug deep into the back of it for her weapons; a dirk that Will had crafted for her, sheathed in leather, which she strapped to her forearm beneath the sleeve of her dress... a smaller blade that Jack had left her with, which she tucked into her garter... an old pistol, and a small sack of shot for it, both of which she hid carefully in the folds of her skirt. She might very well need all three of them.  
  
In retrospect, perhaps it would have been to her advantage to play the distraught young doe. Only as she descended the grand staircase of the house did Elizabeth realize that it would have made her task even simpler. Too late. No matter. She called for her carriage, waited in the drawing room - looking out one of the long french windows, down the hill and over the town, picking out the garrison with her eyes.  
  
Captain Jack Sparrow had returned. No wonder she'd seen not hide nor hair of Will for nearly fourty-eight hours.   
  
Will was a good man; a good blacksmith, a better friend, and the best husband that she could have wished for - but he was a pirate by blood, and Elizabeth had never forgotten this. Their marrige had quenched the proverbial flames in his blood, but the embers still smoldered somewhere inside of him, beneath the ashes of domesticity. Jack was a catalyst for Will - a trigger, a match. Jack fanned those embers with the wings of freedom. And there was something ten times as beautiful about a free man as there was a bound one.  
  
She'd never meant to bind him, of course. Had Will asked her to come away with him - to take to the high seas aboard the Pearl and never look back, she wouldn't have blinked before saying yes. It was he who had asked her hand in marrige, who had settled their lives into lavish and familiar comfort. It was he who had ordered the furniture for their grand house on the hillside, just five minutes from her father's mansion. Will himself had hired their cooks, their footmen, their stable boys. He'd undertaken their lives together with vigor - and though it had surprised her, she had found no reason to doubt or distrust his earnest when he said that he was happy here, with her. His happiness was her happiness, and so she was happy, too.  
  
But it made her sad, in a way, to see him readjust so easily. A year and a half ago, something magical had happened to the William Turner she had always known and loved. He had found himself aboard the Black Pearl. The little boy they'd dragged on deck eight years prior had finally grown into his fathers boots; and oh, what boots they had turned out to be. She'd loved him all the more for it.  
  
But the fire came and went, in him, like the roll and ebb of a wave. When the Black Pearl had pulled out of port a year and a half ago, Will had left a piece of himself on her deck, and the flames had died to mere embers once more.   
  
Unlike Will, however, Elizabeth had never been naive enough to believe that they had seen the last of Captain Jack Sparrow.  
  
He would come back, because he loved Will.  
  
She'd never told either of them that she knew, of course. They didn't want her to know, because they both loved her, too; but she had seen it in their eyes, clear as day. She'd heard it in Will's voice, as they slid the noose around Jack's neck. "Elizabeth, I should have told you from the first time I met you.  
  
"I love you."  
  
**But I love him, as well.**  
  
And how beautiful it was to her - that he could love her so deeply, and still have room to love another just as much. Indeed - William Turner had a capacity for Love that most human beings could never hope to understand. His love for Jack did not negate his love for her, or vice versa. His heart was big enough for both of them, and there was no one that she would rather share it with than Jack; the man who had brought them together, the man who had saved them both. That was why, when Will had stepped between Jack and Norrington's blade, she had stepped to his side.  
  
She only wished that he would have brought Jack here. Of course she knew why he hadn't, and now she cursed herself for never confronting him. "Will, I know you love him. And it's okay. I love him too." How simple it would have made everything. She wouldnt be standing here, now - waiting for the carriage to pull 'round to the steps, and staring down the building in the distance as though it were the enemy.   
  
"Your carriage, Mrs Turner."  
  
Elizabeth cocked the pistol within the folds of her skirt, and let Stella escort her down the front stairs.  
  
***  
  
- to be continued - 


	9. In the Golden Irish Dawn

Any Port In a Storm   
  
Author's Notes : Sorry for the delay on this chapter, but I've honestly been too busy to sit down and work on this one for awhile. I do believe, however, that it shall prove to be well worth the wait; this is, personally, my favorite chapter so far, and the piece that's been the most enjoyable to write this month. There's something tranquil, here - something slow and sensual that I don't quite want to leave behind. I've grown to cherish this sideplot just as much as Jack. I hope you all come to do so, as well.  
  
Please; read slowly, and savor.  
  
* * *  
  
Chapter VIII : In the Golden Irish Dawn   
  
[ colloquial title : Part I : but waves in a storm ]   
  
morning has broken  
  
like the first morning  
  
blackbird has spoken  
  
like the first bird  
  
praise for the singing  
  
praise for the morning  
  
praise for the springing  
  
fresh from the world  
  
- cat stevens -   
  
******  
  
"Who was Grace...?"   
  
... She was a Goddess, that's who she was; a red haired Goddess from the North, with skin like pale cream silk and a tongue like boiled leather against a bruised hide. She was a true Irish beauty, red haired and blue eyed, with the soul of a man and all the sweet, sensual wisdom of a woman. She was a child of the Tribes - one of those ancient blooded creatures, who's ancestors had known Mysteries now lost to mankind. She was a writer, and a sailor, and a formidable player of cards. She was a woman who could read three languages yet spoke with the tongue of a sailor; a woman who owned fine jewels from Spain, yet wore a rawhide bracelet... a woman who preferred freedom to propriety, a woman who loved life more than money.   
  
She was the one I had loved, and lost.   
  
Sometimes William Turner is simply too gentle for his own good. I love him, of course I do - I love him more than I thought myself capable of loving anyone or anything -- because of this I find myself worrying for him almost constantly. Sometimes it's all too easy to forget all that he's seen and felt and experienced in his few short years; his face screams of innocence, and his eyes are so blessedly earnest that it seems not only a shame, but a sin, to taint them with harsh wisdom any further.   
  
I didn't want to tell him about Grace. I wanted to make him laugh some more, because he was beautiful when he laughed, and because I didn't want him to worry anymore. A year and a half ago, I I'd left him behind me for his own good. My own pain hurts him far too much for me to bear, at times; when I bleed he bleeds, and he suffers for my mistakes twice as hard as I do, simply because he loves me.   
  
But when a man kisses the blood from your lips in your hour of greatest pain, you owe it to him to answer a seemingly simple question -- seemingly, unfortunately, being the operative.  
  
"She was a lot of things," I said.   
  
"Was she beautiful?" he asked; and I smiled, because yes, she'd been beautiful, and no, she had not cared. Her looks meant nothing to her. She let her silky red hair tangle in the wind and did not brush it for days on end.   
  
"She was beautiful," I told him, "as only wild things can be beautiful. She walked barefoot through the sand and mud and streets of Donegal and turned her dainty feet black with earth. She wore no paint, but let the chilled Irish air paint her cheeks rose instead. She was a rogue child of the northern wilderness; born in Killybegs to a fishing family who'd not only expected male children, but needed them to carry on the family business. Grace was the eldest of six daughters, and every bit the fisherman her father was. She did the work of a man with a woman's delicate fingers, kept the soul of a man behind a woman's delicate features ... but yes, she was beautiful. More beautiful than one could ever imagine."  
  
"You loved her," whispered Will.  
  
"I loved her. Oh yes, I loved her. But sometimes, Will, love simply isn't enough."  
  
"What happened to her, Jack," he asked me. "What happened to you? And what happened here, last night?"  
  
And the ghost of Grace McClannathan whispered "we are waves" in my ear.  
  
I closed my eyes, took a breath, and so began the tale.   
  
***   
  
The first thing I met was The Whip, not The Woman.  
  
I cheated her at cards, and she broke my nose in a single blow. Only a foolish girl or a wizened wench takes a seat at a tavern card table among the men, and I'd thought her a foolish girl in every sense of the words. Foolish, to frequent a coastal tavern like The Killybegs Black Dog. Foolish, to wear the garb of a man with a body like that. Foolish, to flaunt her youth and her beauty amongst the company of aged scoundrels and whelps. Foolish for wasting her ace on the fourth throw. A pretty little thing, and worth a pretty penny from the looks of it.  
  
I couldn't have been more wrong about her.  
  
She tended the bar of The Black Dog, in the months she spent ashore. She owned no dresses save for the fine gowns her great grandmother had passed down to her, and she never wore them. Instead she wore the clothes of her male peers and compatriots and thought nothing of it; and rough-tanned leather breeches were sinful on her hips and thighs, though she left her loose linen shirts unbuttoned at the top and her tight-cinched bright sashes wound enticingly round the curve of her little waist, every man who frequented The Black Dog either knew better than to open their mouths, or learned the very hard way. Grace McClannathan had not earned her nickname, "The Whip," for nothing. And she'd had the high joker all along.  
  
She didn't get to throw it, though. I made my move before she had the chance to -- cheated her the way I had cheated thousands of hardened cardsmen and gotten away with it clean; held my ace of hearts and threw off, saving it for her king.   
  
"Aye, ye think yer fingers right swift, then, lad."  
  
And then she broke my nose clean, with one tiny fist -- rising from her seat too quickly for me to see and sending me clear over backwards with one blow. When I managed to open my eyes, she was standing over me. She held up the ace of hearts from my deck with two fingers, then slid it into her pocket with a little smile.  
  
"That'll be my book, there."   
  
She looked perfect -- a Siren with snarled, untamed hair and a Mona Lisa smile. The hand that she offered me was tiny, graceful, like the hand of a china doll covered in dirt. Her little nails were perfect ovals. Her grip was like iron, as she helped me to my feet.  
  
I loved her from that moment on.  
  
We gambled and drank the Black Dog dry, that night, of all it's rum and it's gold; we made far better friends than enemies at the card table, and when dawn came we were both very rich and very drunk, and spent of our pleasures on the deck of her fishing boat, the 'Sweet Jane'. In the tavern she had been a man -- but in love, she was a woman, a goddess; the epitome of all that is soft and sensual and uniquely feminine. She kissed as a woman, touched as a woman, yielded as a woman in the wild Irish moonlight.   
  
I remember her lying there, with her hair spread about her -- a lions mane of burnished reds and coppers, spread in silken waves over the worn, faded wooden deck. The warm, golden fingers of First Light had just crept over the horizon to caress her porcelain curves ... to drip like honey over the countor of her hip and thigh, to dip into her navel and curve beneath her breast, to cup her jaw and set her delicate features alight. Red and gold, red and gold. Her hair became the dawn, and the dawn became her hair. Even her eyelashes were on fire. Lithe and lurid and abandoned to reflection, she lay sprawled and shameless on her back, with one arm cradled beneath head and her face turned out to the sea and the newborn sunlight. Silence, save for all of the good, comforting creaks and groans of the little boat, and the soft lap of the breakers against her hull, and far off, somewhere, the cry of a few hungry birds.   
  
She did not mind me watching her. She let me look at her, as she looked at the sea; let me smooth her lurid locks against the roughened planks with my fingertips, let me watch the sun rise in her eyes. Grace had no fatal drop of inhibition in her, no fear of closeness or tenderness or silence as most women seem to harbor. She wore nothing but her rawhide bracelet and the golden Irish dawn -- and in those moments, I do believe that I knew sheer bliss for the first time in my life. Time stood still on the deck of the 'Sweet Jane'; she was mine, and I was hers, and for one sweet sunrise I wanted nothing, needed nothing, save for exactly what I had.  
  
"I want time to stop right here," I told her.  
  
"And leave behind your bonny galleon for the likes of a poor fishing schooner and her penniless captain? You lie like a rug, Captain Sparrow. Think of all the grand adventures you would miss."  
  
Softness in her words, and in her hair against my cheek. She stretched against the deck like a large, lazy feline, her laugh warm and sweet and slow in the back of her throat. I kissed the origin of it -- pressed my lips to the hollow of her throat, then her jugular, then the underside of her jaw; following the laughter to her lips with my own. She rolled her head back and let me kiss her, sighing into me with a deep, languid breath.  
  
I propped myself up on my elbow and looked down at her.  
  
"Come with me, Grace,"  
  
"Stay with me, Jack," she replied with a coy little smile, and reached up to brush my hair from my face. "And that'll be the way of it, dearie. 'Come'. 'Stay'. Oh, we could break each other, you and I. We could wound each other as no other forces on earth have the power to wound." She turned her face to the sea, again, and as though reading from the horizon she said;  
  
"We're nothing but sheer will, you and I. We're nothing but waves in a storm -- momentum and force and velocity, whipped along by the winds. You've seen waves collide as many a time as I; the crash of water pounding against water -- roiling, foaming, explosive. For one split second the waves are not waves but one grand peak of water before they break, and roll back."  
  
Quite suddenly she rose up, rolled atop me in one fluid, easy motion. Dawn was burning on the horizon beyond her, and her hair burned with it; a tangled, sunstruck mantle of copper and gold cascading over her shoulders and breasts to lick at my own ribs. She braced her arms on either side of me, let her weight rest in her shoulders, looked straight into my eyes and said;  
  
"We are waves, Jack. Don't ask me to come. I won't ask you to stay. Let the tides take ye where they will -- come ye back to Killybegs, and I'll welcome ye with open arms."  
  
And then she kissed me; leaned in close and kissed me, pressing her lithe body flush against mine as day broke in full over Donegal Bay, and the Sweet Jane, and the puzzle of our tangled limbs.   
  
I stayed a full fortnight aboard the Sweet Jane, caring nothing for the passing of time. There were more sunrises, and sunsets, and moonlit moments of passion and perfect understanding; but it's that very first morning that remains burned into my memory -- when time stood still in the golden Irish dawn, and it seemed as though I had forever before I would have to leave her.  
  
But leave her I did. I don't know why. Maybe if I had given it all away and stayed with her ... maybe if I had stayed, things would have been different. Maybe they would have been perfect. I'll never be able to say for sure. I only know that Barbossa still haunted me, even in her arms. I only know that my crew grew weary of the same old food and drink, and the same old tavern wenches, and the days of doing nothing beneath a bleak Irish sky that grew progressively colder by the day. The sea called to me. There was gold to be taken and rum to be tasted, horizons to be chased and leagues to be searched for the Pearl and her cursed crew.   
  
And so it was that I pulled anchor one bitter cold morning, on the brink of winter; held her one last time and promised to return before the snow fell twice more. I took the finest ivory bead from my hair, and tied it into hers. On the frozen docks of Killybegs we shared our final kiss -- a kiss that lasted forever, yet ended far too quickly -- and for one moment, I nearly changed my mind. I nearly gathered her into my arms and turned my back on my ship, and my crew, and my life. I nearly stayed.  
  
It was the call of my first mate that shattered that moment. The gray Irish morning rushed back to me on the cold gust of wind that carried his voice, and time moved again, and suddenly the choice was gone from me. I had to go. We both knew it.  
  
"I'll come back to you," I told her.  
  
She smiled softly through her hair, that Mona Lisa smile, and pressed a butterfly kiss to my fingers before she let go of them. Tears in her eyes, or maybe just the sting of the Donegal wind. My first mate called again. I could not look her a moment longer without giving way to tears myself.  
  
I'd nearly made it to the gangplank when her voice stopped me; my name, spoken with the soft, familiar lilt of her Irish brogue. I turned around.  
  
And from her pocket, she drew a single, battered playing card -- the card she had taken from me in the Black Dog that first, fateful evening. The ace of hearts.  
  
"That's your book, there," I told her. "Keep it."  
  
She lifted her chin a bit into the wind, kissed the card, and held it up between two slender fingers before sliding it back into her pocket. And then she turned, and walked back up the pier without a backward glance.  
  
I never saw her again.  
  
I put Killybegs out of my mind. I took to the southern seas and never looked back. I laid claim to anything that lay beyond the bow of my ship, be it vessel or port. I pursued each and every lead on the Black Pearl to their inevitable dead ends. I lived as though Grace McClannathan had been a dream - and slowly but surely, she became just that in my mind; a phantom goddess, frozen in my memories in those moments when I had loved her best. I put Ireland behind me, and kept my eyes on the horizon.  
  
My crew, however, had not so soon forgotten my brief bout of insanity, the way they saw it -- for what but sheer madness could persuade Captain Jack Sparrow to waste his time on such on unlucrative misadventure as what they had begrudgingly endured in Killybegs? The idea that I had loved her never once crossed their minds. Indeed, it was my first who posed the question to me before we had even left the Irish sea;  
  
"Blimey, Captain, why didn't you just bring the wench along? She's a right bonny little thing--"  
  
"Trim up the topsail, Davey."  
  
"-- you could have at least shared the goods --"  
  
And as smoothly as Grace had broken my nose, I broke David Spencer's, with one clean, well placed blow.   
  
- to be continued -   
  
******   
  
A/N II : The tale is but half told, I understand -- but I didn't want to keep you waiting forever. Expect the next chapter within the week. 


	10. Long Lost November

Any Port In A Storm   
  
Authors Notes : ...'Expect the next chapter within a week.' You can all boo me vehemently for that one, for I've earned it. This chapter simply did not want to be written; and when it finally came to me, it came in one fell swoop. My utmost apologies for the long wait -- but I do believe I finally have it right. Also -- please excuse any historical inaccuracies that you come across in the following chapters. I have enough research to do for my books, and I simply don't have time to make this yet another piece of historically accurate fiction. I am not entirely sure what the piracy situation on the African coast was like in the early eighteenth century. Hopefully, neither are you -- but if you are, well... put your Fairy Tale hat on, and don't worry about the details.   
  
Chapter X : Long Lost November  
  
[ colloquial title : casablanca could not cure me ]   
  
******   
  
I'm here without you, baby,   
  
but you're still on my lonely mind   
  
I think about you, baby,   
  
and I dream about you all the time   
  
I'm here without you, baby,   
  
but you're still with me in my dreams,   
  
and tonight girl   
  
it's only you and me.   
  
-- fifteen doors down --   
  
***   
  
I never forgot her.   
  
Fifteen years at sea, and I could still see her face without the slightest detail lost to time. Fifteen years, and I could still smell her skin on the salt air, still taste her in each gold and blazen dawn. Fifteen years, and yet the wind still whispered with her voice each time I closed my eyes.   
  
It still seemed as though just yesterday I left her upon that pier -- and even with the sweet southern seas beneath my hull and the fair southern wind in my sails, it was that cold northern yesterday which I longed for. No gold we plundered shone with the luminous beauty of the Irish dawn. No horizon harbored all the rich and enticing promises of her arms.   
  
My crew was once again sated and subordinate; for most of them, the riches of Spain and the African coast had been more enough to lift their spirits, and quell the faint rumblings that had passed between them in Killybegs. Pirates are, on the whole, simple men -- and simple men have simple desires. The spoils of a most lucrative coastline seemed fair compensation for the wasted fortnight in Ireland to the majority of them, and they were in fine spirits by the time we reached Cape Verde.   
  
All, that is, but one.   
  
David Spencer's nose had never healed properly from the blow I had dealt him that long--ago morning, and neither had his pride; indeed, when I caught wind of the whispers of mutiny, I had no doubt as to their source. And when the African coastline proved too little for him and his few remaining conspirators, I knew at once what had to be done.   
  
It was off the coast of Cape Verde that I left them, on an island no greater in length than my ship, armed only with their senses and their suicide shots -- four in all, and none of them a sadness to part with. Truth be told, I was more than glad to be rid of them -- but none of them moreso than Spencer, whom I had never truly liked despite his keen eye and hearty sailwork. The gold meant nothing to him, nor did the sea; it was the women that he wanted, always the women, and never for a moment did he forget about Grace -- the finest loot, by his score, that had ever been swindled from him.   
  
Perhaps that is truly why I marooned him in Africa. Whatever the case, he was gone from me then.   
  
But Grace McClannathan felt closer than ever. In her arms, I had dreamed of the horizon. Now, on the horizon, I dreamed incessantly of her arms.  
  
I could feel her in my sleep; the sinuous, silken warmth of her in my arms, the soft veil of her hair against my face, the even whisper of her breath against my throat. I caught the lurid gleam of her hair, each sunset, in the corner of my eye. But when I turned, she was never there, and when I awoke, she dissipated into dreams.  
  
  
  
We sailed north to Casablanca, a city I hold quite dear, and one that had much to offer our likes. There was enough rich drink and black market bartering to keep my crew well contented, and without Spencer to exploit their restless spirits they remained so for nearly two months as I searched in vain for refuge. I drown myself in rum and rich living and the pleasures of silk--draped brothels; drown myself in the arms of exotic north African beauties two at a time. It was to no avail. It was her I was touching as I lay with them, her name that I whispered when passion overcame me. It was her face I saw when I closed my eyes, no matter the strength or quantity of the drink.   
  
Casablanca could not cure me.  
  
And so I made for another port, and another. For over a decade I ran from the ghost of Grace McClannathan. I pressed the limits of the law ceaselessly - tackling voyages that few would dare, raiding ports that they said could not be raided - doing all the things they said could not be done, and yet it was not enough. Nothing was enough. I came back to the Caribbean, back to Tortuga, and it was there that I gathered the maddest of the madmen; a hardened, raucous band of scalawags, each and every one of them tried, tested, tenacious, and treasure hungry. I set my sights upon the Isle de la Muerta, upon the treasure of the great Cortez himself. I feared nothing, risked everything; set sail with my eyes on the horizon and my mind back in Killybegs. I walked, I talked, I schemed and bargained and cheated as I always had, but it was mechanical, nothing more. I was a haunted man.  
  
Had it not been for Barbossa, we may never have made it out of port.  
  
He smelled my weakness from the very beginning. I know this now. He smelled it a mile away, and I wouldn't be surprised if he had planned the entire mutiny before we even left port. Being a predator, however - and any good pirate is essentially just that - he bided his time, waiting for the opportune moment to move in for the kill.   
  
It was roughly thirty leagues west of the Windward Islands when precisely that happened.  
  
I would like to be able to say that I saw it coming, but I didn't. Barbossa was no Davey Spencer - he planned well, and fought even better when the time came; and a fight there was, indeed - for I did not go easy, nor did I go without taking over a dozen of them with me. They came for me at dawn, hoping to catch me in my sleep - but I caught them at the door of my quarters, armed to the teeth, and I cut the first swath of them down like sheep at the slaughter. I fought them with everything that I had until my hands were bound, and the pistol was at my temple, and only a thin plank of wood stood between me and the waters of the Caribbean.  
  
I remember the moment quite clearly to this day - gazing down into the sparkling turquoise shallows, with two dozen swords at my back and the rising sun in my eyes. I remember the scent of the wind, and the sea, and the warm wood of the ship, and the sun - oh the sun - brilliant red and blazing just above the horizon. I remember how very different it was from the Irish dawn; and in the last moment before they forced me into the sea, I remember thinking only that Grace would have loved to see this sunrise... that she should be here to see this sunrise, and that if she were, whatever came next would be perfectly all right with me.  
  
  
  
What happened next, however, has since become both a myth and a legend. Only you, Will, and your dear Elizabeth know the truth of it; that the daring, dramatic, and heavily debated escape of Captain Jack Sparrow from exile was really nothing more than sheer luck, and a talent for bargaining.  
  
My money was gone. My ship was gone. Everything that I had ever known as life was gone, now, and the only thing that I had left lay on the other side of the Atlantic. There was no decision to be made. There was not even a choice. Somehow, I had to get back to Killybegs.  
  
  
  
I bartered passage aboard a privateer clipper that took me as far north as the Carolinas, and from there I was able to hop a merchant vessel to the Spanish coast under an assumed identity. It was in the Mediterranean that I rounded up a small but hearty crew, and commandeered the rickety vessel that took me up the European coast, at last, to Ireland.  
  
  
  
The fishing village had changed but naught since last I saw it, and the moment that I set foot on the pier, fifteen years of my life disappeared. It seemed as though I had come right back to that long lost November; seemed that if I hurried I could still catch her, still stop her, still tell her that I wasn't leaving, never left her -- no, Grace, I'm still here, right here. I've always been here.  
  
Sublime seemed the very dock boards beneath my feet as I made my way along them. It all looked the same, smelled the same, felt the same -- and then I saw it; the Sweet Jane, rocking lazily at her moorings in the little harbor. I had come home at last.  
  
  
  
It was not to the boat that I first went, however, but The Black Dog; for if the Sweet Jane was moored, surely Grace must be there. My strides couldn't carry me quickly enough, once I came within sight of the door. fifteen long and lonely years I had long for this, dreamed of this, and now my Salvation lay not leagues, but mere paces before me. This time, I would not let her go. Somehow I would persuade her to come away with me, or I would die here with her, I did not care -- so long as she was with me. I had found the greatest treasure that the seas had to offer me, and such a fool I had been to leave it behind.  
  
  
  
Such a fool.  
  
  
  
The warmth and light of The Black Dog was a shock to my senses after the bitter November evening, and only dimly did I hear the door close behind me. Same tavern. Same tables. Even some of the faces were familiar. Roaring with music and laughter, churning with motion and spinning with color, it seemed that I had fallen into my very dreams. I stood against the wall, reeling, my eyes purging the crowd for the face of the woman I loved.  
  
  
  
I did not find it.  
  
  
  
"Yeh've got a right keen eye, mate. Who might it be lookin' fer?"  
  
  
  
The woman's voice froze the very blood in my veins. I turned.  
  
  
  
The voice had been Graces, but the face was not. Indeed, it's owner was only just a woman; a dark haired, dark eyed young creature, beautiful to be sure, but full of Saxon blood and not but half my age. Yet there was a cunning behind her eyes that one does not often find in such youth, and her smile alluded to things of which children know nothing. And her voice...   
  
"There is a woman who comes here. Her name is Grace."  
  
  
  
The woman's dark eyes grew darker. Her smile hardened.  
  
  
  
"You'll not find her here, tonight nor any. If yer lookin' for Grace, you'll be wantin' the boneyard, mate."  
  
  
  
For a moment, there was Nothing. I heard, I saw, but I did not feel. I did not think. I simply stopped, and time stopped with me. Frozen against the wall, I only stared at her, tried to drive the words back down her throat with sheer force of will so that she'd never spoken them. My breath lay still in my chest, my stomach twisted. Take it back, damn you. Take it back, bring her back, take...  
  
  
  
"... You're Jack, aren't you."  
  
  
  
She was still standing there, very still, her dark eyes on me. She wasn't smiling, anymore.   
  
  
  
"How--"  
  
  
  
"You'd have to be Jack. No one asks for Grace, anymore, but she told me that you would."  
  
  
  
That voice. Stop speaking. You are going to break me with that voice, her voice...  
  
  
  
"Who are you?" I breathed.  
  
  
  
"Jane. I'm her daughter."  
  
******  
  
A/N : Once again... our sideplot is not finished. Keep an eye out for the third and final installment of it next chapter -- then we'll get back to the present, promise. 


	11. Faded Shades of Grey

Any Port In A Storm  
  
  
  
Author's Note : ... And here I thought I was a slash writer. No, seriously guys; I didn't plan the story this way. Grace simply... happened, as did Jane - and now I have to see it through. Whatever they are, and why ever they chose to impose themselves upon Captain Jack Sparrow - a character that I dearly love, but hardly devised - I don't claim to understand, and may never know. All I know is that they're mine, and they have something to say, and this is simply where they chose to be. I owe it to them to see this thing through, know what I mean...? Anyway - fear not, for Will shall be back by the end of the chapter.  
  
  
  
Chapter XII : Faded Shades of Grey  
  
[ colloquial title :from lips that I had never kissed ]  
  
  
  
******  
  
  
  
Morning came in shades of grey.  
  
  
  
The horizon of Donegal Bay lay as it had for a thousand years or more; the breakers churned and danced like lovers in the distance, shattering against the sheer, stern faces of the cliffs - faces that had seen the rise and fall of empires, the rise and set of a thousand suns.  
  
  
  
Those cliffs had been red when last I'd seen them; timeless, luminous sentries beyond a burning bay, and I had loved them well. She'd told me the stories of this land, this sea - stories that had been passed down, mother to daughter, from an age that none can now recall. Her people had been here before the Christians, before the Romans; and when blood lives and breeds and thrives in a place, age after age as her blood had, the heart that cradles it beats in time with the heart of the land. She had been a part of this ancient, wild, windswept place; a piece of it's very heart and soul as surely as the cliffs, and the hills, and the sea, and her tales had come alive on a voice as wise and beautiful as the land and moment. She had been the Irish Dawn, incarnate - reds and golds and magic; old, silent magic.   
  
  
  
But she was lost to me, now, and everything that she had been seemed gone from the world, in all of its incarnations. Dawn did not burst forth and bleed over the horizon, this morning, but rose silent and solemn in shades of grey behind a mourning veil of rain clouds. Grey the sky and grey the sea, grey the faces of the cliffs, and the worn, faded deck of the Sweet Jane, and my own worn, faded soul. There was no red, and no gold - not as I had seen them. The colors of sunrise had died with her, it seemed; somewhere on the hillside they lay dead and buried, marked now by only a cold grey tombstone.  
  
  
  
I had not gone to her grave, and I never would. There was nothing for me there. No cold carved words could do justice to a life lived on the waves; the sea was her epitaph, and it should have been her grave as well. To lay her in the earth had been a sacrilege. I imaged her there, beneath the dirt, her silk pale fading to grey with passing of the years, the sunrise of her hair falling away to dust. For hours I sat, numb and motionless, as she rotted to ruin behind my eyes. When the rain came, I did not feel it. I let the sky cry down upon me, drench me with the tears that my own eyes would not, could not shed.   
  
  
  
I never even heard her come aboard.  
  
  
  
She moved with the same silent grace as her mother, and like her mother, the weather seemed to be of little concern to her. Indeed, she was as soaked as I; her dark hair hung in dripping tendrils before her eyes, and her simple dress clung to her curves, weighed down by the water - yet she wore no coat, and did not shiver. Rather she stood very still at the bow of the 'Sweet Jane', and said, "...you came all the way back."  
  
  
  
Yes, Grace. I came all the way back for you. I came all the way back, through heaven and hell, just to kiss you once more. I came all the way back because I lost everything, and I didn't want it anyway. I came back. But you're dead.  
  
  
  
I did not look at the woman standing at the bow, I could not. If I didn't look at her then I could pretend - pretend that it really was Grace, that it really was all right, that it had all been just a horrible nightmare... that any moment she would come close, and touch me with her china doll fingers, and the rest of the world would simply fade to grey. Oh God, darling, I'm so tired... so tired... but I'm home now, and I can hear you, yes; if nothing else... I can hear you.  
  
  
  
"She said you'd come back. She loved my father fine, but it was you she wanted."  
  
  
  
I swallowed, shuddered, closed my eyes. I was listening to my lover speak from lips that I had never kissed, when her own lips had been cold for ten years. No, don't remember that. Don't look. Just listen. You've waited more than a decade to hear that voice, and this is as close as you will come. It can be real, as real as you please, as long as you don't look...  
  
  
  
I said nothing.  
  
  
  
I could feel her draw closer, though I could not hear her footsteps. The rain was coming down in sheets, now, and the wind had risen to a scream in my ears. She sat down beside me on the deck, and placed her hand upon my arm. I turned my face away.   
  
  
  
"I kept the boat because I knew that, if you came back, you'd want to see her. She's a fine ship. Pa, he taught me how to sail her early on. We still take her out, now and again, when the weather's fine and there's a following wind. I was named after her, you know. Sweet Jane."  
  
  
  
She was very close to me, and though I felt nothing else I could feel the heat radiating from her, seeping into my skin where her hand lay upon my arm, and I placed my own hand over hers. How soft the skin beneath my fingers, and how delicate the bones beneath it. Grace's hand, small and warm and solid, her fingers coiling through my own. Yes, please, keep talking... I don't need the words, just the sound of it; please, come closer. Keep talking. Don't take the dream away just yet.  
  
  
  
"I watched you pull into port from The 'Dog. I knew right away who you were. You look just like she said you did. She said, 'He was so easy to fall in love with, Jane. He had the sea in his eyes and the devil on his tongue, just like The Old Man. He cheated me at cards,' she said, 'and I think I loved him all the more for it.' Even after she met Pa, she waited for you. She said she knew you'd come back. 'He's a pirate, lass, but he's a good man,' - aye, those were her words. 'He'll come back, you wait and you see. I've got his Ace of Hearts.'"  
  
  
  
Yes, yes, of course I came back... you're Grace, you're the sunrise, you're all that I have, now. A far off rumble of thunder rolled across the water towards us. Her fingers, which had been pliant within my own, now stroked across my palm in a petal-soft caress. Her hair brushed against my cheek. Yes, please, closer. Let the storm come, let it tear this little ship apart - just be real for me, please, this one last time...  
  
  
  
I swallowed hard, and whispered, "I never should have left..."  
  
  
  
"No, Jack. You never should have left - but that doesn't matter now. Don't think on what you've lost; think of what you've found. You came back, and that's what matters. Now there can be time... for us." She drew my fingers to her lips, kissed each of them in turn before guiding them to the strings of her dress. "You've come so far, Jack... don't let it be for nothing."  
  
  
  
Not for nothing, no - for you, darling. Only for you. After all these long years I've come back to you, back for you, back for this...  
  
  
  
And then I was kissing her; kissing the tongue that wove the web of Grace's voice around me, kissing my dead lover upon the lips of her offspring. I was undressing the dreams that I had held so very dear, for so very, very long. The warm, willing flesh beneath my own even tasted the same; and the moans of pleasure and passion were memories come alive again on a voice that I'd missed like no other. There on the deck of the Sweet Jane, I made love to the ghost of Grace McClannathan. I kept her alive beneath my fingertips by keeping my eyes closed.   
  
  
  
"Ai.... Jesus, Jack, yes, please... ... ... ... NO!"  
  
  
  
The body beneath me went rigid, and the word hit me like a bullet in the chest.   
  
  
  
I opened my eyes.  
  
  
  
For one split second I saw her, there; saw her as I had last seen her, as I had always dreamed about her - my Grace, with her long red hair spread out beneath her - and then that moment shattered upon the nightmare of reality, as the pistol cocked against my temple.  
  
  
  
"Get the fuck off my daughter, Sparrow."  
  
  
  
Jane shoved me off of her before I could move, scrambled to her feet and laced her dress with quick, steady fingers. She was not trembling, nor was she in pain from what I could tell, but she had broken into a torrent of hysterical sobs. The pistol was joined by a knife at my throat. "Get up, you son of a bitch."  
  
  
  
I knew that voice. I loathed that voice. I thought I had left that voice stranded on an island off of Cape Verde, no greater in length than my ship. Now it hissed, very close to my ear, "Din't think ye'd see me again, eh *Captain*? Thought you were rid of 'ol Davy, din'tcha? Thought you'd have a jaunt back to see your bonny lass in the northern sea while I was no more'n bones on a beach somewhere, ye did -- who'da thunk it?"  
  
  
  
The knife pressed harder against my throat.   
  
  
  
"I'da thunk it, that's who. M'afraid yer a tad late, Captain - 'ol Gracie's been dead and gone a good while, now; and where you been, eh? You been out fetchin jewels for 'er? And 'ere 'ol Davey's been the whole time, raisin' 'er daughter. *Our* daughter. The daughter that you mistook for some two bit whore who'd 'ave no one to revenge 'er misuse?"  
  
  
  
Jane had ceased her tears, and now she stood by the rail, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve. She had the look, indeed, of a woman misused - until she raised her head and looked at me.  
  
  
  
Nothing but satisfied malice in her eyes; the satisfaction of a woman who has cried wolf and gotten away with it hook, line, and sinker. She blew me the tiniest kiss on the air before once again hiding her face in her hands.   
  
  
  
"Why you little whore," I breathed.  
  
  
  
With a growl of rage, Spencer dealt me a blow to the back of the head with his pistol that sent me reeling.  
  
  
  
"Whore?" hissed Jane. "My mother was the whore, Jack. I told you. She liked my father fine, but it was you she wanted - you, who left her behind... you, who gave her nothing but an ivory bead and a card - you, who left four of your own men to die like dogs so that you could be the dog in the manger; neither keeping my mother nor leaving her to those who would? How many women did you sleep with since you left her, Jack? Thirty? Forty? Do you even know? And she loved you - oh, yes, she loved you; more than Pa, more than me, more than anything. She just settled for us while you were off getting rich."  
  
  
  
"And so we din't settle for 'er no more, did we Janie? Set 'ol Gracie right, yer Pa did," - and then, in a whisper against my ear - "right in 'er grave, once she'd become old hat."  
  
  
  
There were too many questions to ask and no time to ask them, too many lies to be untangled, and no time to even cut them apart. There was no time to say goodbye to this little boat that I loved so dearly, that had been the home of so much happiness. There was only rage, sheer rage, and one moment opportunity. As Jane's voice had risen, Spencer's grip had loosened; it was then, or not at all - wrenching the blade away from my throat, I spun 'round and caught him in the nose with my elbow. The pistol went off, but the shot struck nothing more than water, and in the next second I'd laid him out cold on the deck with a swift blow to the base of his skull. Drawing my sword, I turned on Jane.  
  
  
  
"Don't. Say. A word. Understood?"  
  
  
  
I barely remember the trip along the docks, from the Sweet Jane to the moorings of my own ship, dragging an unconscious Spencer with one arm, and a struggling Jane with the other. If anyone saw us, I could not tell you. There was one thing and one thing alone on my mind - revenge. Revenge on her, on him, on this town, on fate itself. My first mate sat up sharp from his slumber as I hauled the duo up the gangplank and past him to the main mast.   
  
  
  
"Weigh anchor and ready the nines," I told him.  
  
  
  
"Pardon, sir...?"  
  
  
  
"You heard me, Adams." I dropped Spencer on the deck, and proceeded to lash Jane to the mast. "Weigh anchor. Ready the nines. Rouse the whole bloody lot of them, wherever they are - and take down this port. Don't leave a building standing, nor a ship afloat. I want it gone, do you hear me? I promised you a sortie before we made the Spanish coast - now do as I say, or I'll leave you hear to burn with it, savvy?"  
  
  
  
"You son of a BITCH!" roared Jane.  
  
  
  
"Sticks and stones, luv," I hissed.   
  
  
  
I wanted to kill him outright, but I didn't. To kill him before he came 'round would have been a kindness that I did not intend to impart upon him. When I killed David Spencer, I wanted him to feel it. I wanted him to writhe with it. I didn't know what he had done to her, or when - but I would do it a thousand times over to him before I granted him the blessed release of death.  
  
  
  
It was the sound of her voice that stopped me.  
  
  
  
"NO! God, no Jack... please..."  
  
  
  
I'm not listening, Grace. I'm not listening...  
  
  
  
"Kill me instead, please, just leave my father alone..."  
  
  
  
Shut up, damn you... you're not her, not her, not--  
  
  
  
"Jack..."  
  
  
  
I couldn't do it - not with that voice pleading in my ears, begging me between sobs to have mercy. I should have done it, god knows; I should have done everything that I wanted and more to him. I should have kept him prisoner for months on end - starving him slowly between bouts of torture - but I did not. Because of that voice, I let him live.  
  
  
  
But not without keeping his wedding ring, and the finger to go with it.  
  
  
  
I left the both there in Killybegs - or what was left of it after our five hour raid. My crew was more than happily obliged to keep to my orders, and by the time we pulled out of port the next morning at dawn, almost nothing remained of the little harbor that, once upon a time, had looked so much like Heaven on Earth to me.   
  
  
  
But the cliffs were red, at least, that morning - not with the dawn, but with the fires that we left in our wake.  
  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
"Whatever became of Jane, I do not know," Jack said finally. "I left Ireland behind, and I never looked back. I came back to my beloved Caribbean; back for The Pearl, back for my life. I left Grace in her grave on the hillside... the grave I never saw, and never wanted to. I put love, and longing, and the golden Irish dawn out of my mind; for they were finally dead, to me, and the ghost of Grace McClannathan rested finally in her grave.  
  
  
  
"And as for Davey, well... we both know what's become of him now, I suppose."  
  
  
  
For a long time there was silence in the little garrison cell; silence save for the steady drip of water from some unknown shadowed corner, and the breathing of William Turner and Captain Jack Sparrow.   
  
  
  
And then Will said, "Before we leave here, we're going to kill him."  
  
  
  
"Provided that we leave here at all," Jack said quietly.   
  
  
  
******  
  
- to be continued - 


	12. Nightmares & Nemeses

Chapter XII : Nightmares and Nemeses  
  
* * * * * *   
  
Part I : Old Enemy Fear  
  
[ colloquial title : waiting in the dreamscape ]   
  
Captain Jack Sparrow was not a man to give himself over to fear without a fight. He preferred anger, if he had to choose, or the useful brand of controlled panic that had saved his skin more times than he could count. He preferred to think first and feel later, if at all possible. It was thinking, not feeling, that made or broke opportunities; and although Jack's manic thought process would have certainly baffled anyone who did not happen to be Jack, it was by his wits that he made it from day to day without falling victim to the countless and potentially fatal hazards of his lifestyle. Fear had no place in his rational; it was something that he did not entirely understand, and for this alone he might have loathed it. But fear was also the quickest path to an early grave for a pirate -- it sucked up strength, slowed the senses, and at times buckled the will. Fear made a man weak. And weakness was not a trait easily tolerated by Captain Jack Sparrow - especially not in himself.   
  
He had thought his way through the rape, not felt it. The fear had come -- oh, it had come -- and the pain as well, but he could swallow these things down as long as he was thinking. If he was thinking, he was still alive. His body would heal, but if he'd let them inside his head, it might have been all over -- and so he'd barricaded them out with a constant, one sided discourse to himself. His mind had worked as ceaselessly as their hands upon his skin - It's not them that you're afraid of, damn you, and it's not the pain either. You've nothing to fear but fear itself. Logic. Use your logic. You can't move because there's too many of them, and if you struggle you won't win. But if you don't choose to move, they're not really holding you still, are they? You're holding yourself still. You're choosing not to struggle. You still have choices. Just choose wisely, and hold still...   
  
He'd done well, by his own count. He hadn't let them hear him so much as moan, let alone scream. He hadn't given them the satisfaction of struggling, or pleading, or even trying to evade their hands. He'd shoved the fear back to the darkest recesses of his mind and let hatred roll to the surface when he'd met Spencer's eyes, and he hadn't curled in upon himself in agony when at last they released him. He'd taken it all with as much courage and dignity as he could possibly retain under the circumstances. He hadn't let them see him break.   
  
He'd even hidden the horror of it as best he could from Will - Will, who'd called him perfect in his moment of greatest shame; Will, who had touched him, afterwards, without the slightest hint of distaste. He'd closed his eyes and hidden his face against his lovers shirt through the bars, swallowing the nausea back again and again, refusing to be sick to keep Will from worrying even more. Never really sleeping and yet far from fully conscious, he'd breathed and bled and thought the nightmares away; struggling to cling to the warmth of the familiar chest beneath his cheek when the raw and nearly tangible memories threatened to overwhelm him.   
  
It had been solace, indeed, to speak of Grace; the woman who's memory he'd swallowed like fear after leaving Killybegs ablaze in his wake. Grace had made him feel too much of everything -- cost him a thousand tears and a little piece of his sanity. Only in Will's arms had he found the heart to remember her again, for in Will's arms everything seemed safe to say, and safe to remember. Love was not his enemy has he'd once thought. He'd come back in time, this time around, without even trying to; and Will had been there, just as he'd remembered him -- only better, because he was real. Grace could be a memory without pain, now; a beautiful memory, as she'd always been meant to be. To tell the tale of her had been an escape from the Horror, for an hour or two.   
  
And Will had been so protective, after -- vowing his vengeance against Spencer on pain of death, and so possessive had been his embrace that not even the memories had been able to slip past it. Jack had closed his eyes and let Will's voice drown out the world around him; cradled in a small and comforting universe that belonged only to them, he had forgotten all about the Horror for a while.   
  
It was bound to catch up with him sometime.   
  
Everything that he'd felt and fought off for so many hours lay waiting for him in the dreamscape; humiliation, pain, and Old Enemy Fear. There was no thinking his way out of nightmares; no way to escape the horror, this time, as the crude and careless hands stripped him down ... as they touched him roughly in the most tender places without the slightest thought as to how it must feel... He couldn't drown out the things they whispered to him, this time; the cruel and dirty things that only made him angry when he was thinking, but wounded him now in ways he had not thought possible. There was no swallowing the fear that overwhelmed him as they threw him to the floor; drew his hips up with cruel, biting fingers and forced his legs apart...   
  
This time, he felt the helplessness to his very bones. This time he struggled as he never had before, fought the hands that pinned him down with every ounce of strength he could muster. This time he screamed until his lungs burned, begged them to stop it, just stop it -- please, it hurts, just stop...   
  
It was his own scream that woke him, echoing off the dungeon walls.   
  
* * *   
  
Part II : Enemies on His Skin  
  
[ colloquial title : on the nature of scars ]   
  
He shifts again in my arms -- not the peaceful shift of slumber, but a restless and uneasy movement. He's been asleep for nearly two hours, from what I can guess -- and guess is all that I can do -- but he hasn't relaxed at all. His body is a coiled spring against me, wrought with waves of tension over tension that send shudders through his very bones. There is no peace to his slumber; the distress pulses through him as surely as his own heartbeat.   
  
They're hurting him. I can feel it.   
  
I smooth his hair back and kiss him gently, but it's no good. He can't feel me. He's in their hands again, and those hands are hurting him. I would give anything to climb inside his head and kill these monsters for him, but I can't. I can only try to rouse him with a gentle shake and a call of his name, and I do so, now.   
  
It's the wrong thing to do.   
  
His response is both immediate and violent. One second he's clinging to me for dear life, and the next he's struggling to get away. The fear is plastered across his features, clear as day; his face is stricken, anguished, and were his eyes open I do not think that I could bear to see them. His slender hands release my shirt, press flat against my chest in a feeble attempt to push me away. I don't know who's hands he feels, right now, but they aren't mine. He jerks back from me convulsively, as though the nightmare is trying to wrench him from my very arms, but he has no true strength in this haunted slumber. It's easy to keep him in my from getting away. I do not let go.   
  
His struggles crescendo in the next moment, then cease utterly. He falls still in my arms, limp not in relief but in terror, and a breath of a whimper forms on his lips. He's shivering from head to toe, now. I can smell the fear on him, sickly sweet and rotten. I can't be sick. I can't let go of him. I can't bear to see him curl up in the filth of the dungeon floor, cringing from unseen torments. He's gasping for breath, chest heaving against me, heart pounding so hard against his ribcage that I can feel it in my own bones. He tries to pull away, again -- a small and hopeless contraction of muscles, nothing more. I hold him closer, and I talk to him, even though I know he cannot hear me.   
  
"I'm not letting go of you, damn you. You're not going through this alone again - I won't allow it, I refuse to allow it, they're not going to take you back from me darling..."   
  
His back arches, and he whips his face away from an unseen blow with a gasp and a strangled moan. He is not asleep anymore, but he is far from conscious, either. He's trapped somewhere inside his own head, where I cannot reach him, and there might as well be bars between us again. They are touching him when I cannot. There are tears streaming down his face, now, and I wipe them away with trembling fingers. He hadn't cried when they'd hurt him. He hadn't cried until after, and even then he'd barely cried at all. But he's crying, now; sobbing, really, but I am afraid to try and wake him again. I am terrified. His helplessness is terrifying, because Jack is never helpless when he's conscious. Whatever they are doing to him -- and I know, all to well, what they must be doing to him - I cannot stop it, and neither can he. I cannot save him, no matter how close I hold him. They are raping him again right here in my arms.   
  
"No ... please..."   
  
The words are only half formed on his lips, a desperate plea whimpered on the barest breath of air, but they drive like iron into my guts. I have never heard his voice like this, before. It doesn't sound like Jack. It doesn't feel like Jack. Every muscle in his body is drawn, tense; I can feel his abdomen spasm, his toes curl. My God, let go of him. Leave him alone. I can almost see their dirty fingers on his skin, again. I can almost hear them call him a whore. I am torn between rage and sheer panic - I want to hurt them like they're hurting him, but there's no one here to hurt. All that I can do is hold on to him, talk to him, pray that he wakes.   
  
Quite suddenly, his entire body locks like a vice in my arms; the scream does not make it past the back of his throat, but it's there, and the sound of it turns my stomach nearly to sickness. I want to scream with him. I want to scream his name until he wakes up, I want to shake him until he comes back to me. I would do anything, anything at all, to make this stop for him - I would bear it myself were it possible, if only ease his suffering just a little. Anything, anything -- just stop it. Stop it, stop it--   
  
"STOP!"   
  
I don't know if it's my voice or his, echoing off the dungeon walls.   
  
Jack freezes in my arms as though he's been shot. I can feel his eyes shoot open in the dark, though my own eyes are shut tight. The scream dies in his throat, and he goes eerily still against me, save for his hoarse and labored breathing. He's not crying, anymore. Neither am I. I hadn't realized that I'd been crying in the first place, but my face is soaked with tears. Neither of us move. Neither of us speak. We just hold on to one another, anchor eachother as our hearts find their rhythm, and we remember how to breathe again. I am aware of how small we are in this moment, and how fragile; two delicate microcosms of breath and blood and bone, clinging to eachother as we spin through space and time -- hopelessly powerless to steer ourselves, hideously unarmed against the fates.   
  
And then something changes in the cell. Something shifts -- not in us, but around us. A brightness presses against my eyelids. Jack shifts against me with a deep, shuddering breath. I take a deep breath as well. I open my eyes. The clouds have shifted, and there's moonlight flooding through the spare, high-set window of the prison. One single, pure, slanted patch of silver-blue moonlight -- and we're sitting right in the middle of it. We're bathed in it. We're breathing it. We're soaked and dripping with good, clean moonlight -- and finally, I can see him.   
  
The scars on his back stand out silver white -- old scars, familiar scars, scars that I have touched a thousand times. Lash marks. They're healed, now. They're healed like the burns on his arms, and the bullet wounds that go straight through his chest and out the back of his shoulder. We are old friends, these scars and I. We know eachother through and through. I know each and every one of them by touch alone, know the feeling of them against my skin as surely as his hands. We are intimate, his scars and I, and I love them; love them because they are part of him, love them because they are old, and benign, now, and because they cause him no pain. They don't belong to the cruel hands that dealt them, anymore. They belong to me, because I'm the one that knows them best. Because I'm the one who loves them.   
  
But there are enemies on his skin, now. There are cuts here, open scrapes on his shoulders and his back. There are bruises peppered across his hips and stomach. There is dried blood on his wrists where the shackles rubbed him raw, and between his thighs. The bruises look like shadows in the moonlight. The blood looks like dried ink.   
  
I don't know these marks. They are foreign. They are obscene. They are wounds, not scars -- too raw and invasive to be beautiful. They are made of pain, these marks, and I hate them. They disrupt the peace of his body. I want his old scars to rally against them and make them leave, because they don't belong there. They don't belong at all. But his old scars have accepted them already. Scars are not territorial. They're happy to be piled on top of one another, and they don't mind the new company. They see themselves at birth in these new horrors, and they remember what it was like to be young, and they let these new wounds move right in on their turf. I can't blame them. It's just their way.   
  
I don't want to look at them anymore. I want to look in his eyes, but I can't see them. His arms are wound 'round my neck, and he's got his face buried behind one of them. He's barely breathing against me. I want to whisper to him, but before I can, he whispers to me.   
  
"I thought they were going to kill me. I thought they were going to kill me and that I'd never, ever have you again. They had their hands in my hair, and the knife to my throat, and I kept trying to turn my head because I wanted to see you, Will. I wanted to see you at least one more time..."   
  
I press him closer to me. I wind my arms around him as tightly as I dare to, and I bury my face in his hair. I'm crying again. I'm rocking him in my arms, and I'm crying and kissing his hair, and he's whispering;   
  
"...and then they let go, and they threw me down, and I thought 'this is it. They'll do it now -- they'll kill me, and that's okay. I'll be able to look at him. He'll be the last thing that I see.'"   
  
His breath catches in his throat, and he swallows hard.   
  
"I can still feel their hands, Will..."   
  
"Then feel mine," I whisper desperately. "Feel mine... They can't touch you now, Jack. Only me. Feel that?" - I grazed my knuckles over his cheekbone in a feather-soft caress. "That's me, Jack. My hands won't hurt you. They don't know how." Gently, oh-so-gently, I guided my fingers beneath his jaw and coaxed his face up to me. "Look at me, darling. I'm right here..."   
  
His eyes were liquid in the moonlight, dark and fathomless and shining on the surface. I wanted to touch them, touch his very eyes, touch his soul through them. Instead I trace my thumb just beneath one, brush his eyelashes with the touch. He doesn't flinch from me. He lets me lean in to kiss the shadows beneath his eyes. He lets me look at him, and he looks back at me with fragile yet earnest trust. And then he raises one trembling hand, and places it against my cheek.   
  
"Kiss me...?" It is not a demand, it is a plea.   
  
And so I do.   
  
I kiss him as gently as it is possible to kiss. I brush softly against his bruised lips, then press even softer. I cup his jaw in my fingers, guide his mouth open with my own just enough to taste the very tip of his tongue with the very tip of mine. It's Jack who deepens the kiss -- who finally opens to me, sighs into me, melts against me. Our lips part, meet again, and it's sweeter the second time. He's kissing like Jack, now, smooth and slow. He's savoring it. He's yielding to me without fear, and our tongues are dancing, and it's Heaven where our mouths meet. They didn't kiss him, not even once. Kissing is still pure for him, still pristine. Kissing is still just for us.   
  
I want to draw back and look at him, but I can't. I can't stop tasting him. I can't stop dropping tiny kisses to the torn corners of his mouth, or feasting on his lower lip, or curling my tongue in smooth, slow strokes against his, again and again. I want this to last forever. I want to kiss him until his wounds fade into scars that I can learn to love. I want to tumble with him out of space and time and kiss him until the stars burn out. I don't want to breathe. Breathing means pausing. But pausing leaves time for hushed words, whispered against one another's lips -- and those are almost as beautiful as kisses, in the end.   
  
"Don't stop..."   
  
"...Never..."   
  
"...Thought I'd lost you..."   
  
" ... right here, darling..."   
  
"... don't tell, please..."   
  
"... no one. No one..."   
  
"... couldn't face them..."   
  
"... they won't find out..."   
  
"... only you know ... just you..."   
  
"... just me."   
  
"Good..." Jack whispered, and smiled softly as I kissed his forehead. "Good ... because they're coming."   
  
And then the sound cannon fire rolled in from the bay.  
  
* * * * * *  
  
A/N : ...I didn't expect the chapter to end there? But there it ended. Get ready for much dramatic rescuing in the chapters to come. 


End file.
